


The Long and Exciting Life of Kreet the Kobold

by Bluedraggy



Series: Kreet [1]
Category: Furry (Fandom)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 37,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24013438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluedraggy/pseuds/Bluedraggy
Summary: This is, I think, my first long-form and relatively serious work of fiction.  I'm not sure I can call it fanfiction because all the characters are my own, though it's basis is in most D&D-type worlds. The main character is Kreet, a lizard-like kobold. I really like this story, though I know it won't have the readership of a true fanfiction since there are no direct connections to other stories. As for sexuality, it barely touches on a possible interspecies relationship but don't expect it to be THAT kind of story. It isn't. I'd started a second story in the series half-finished, but someday I really do plan to return to it.
Series: Kreet [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740988
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. Slaughter

They found 5 gold pieces, and one of them said he had leveled up. That was the sum total of what the Adventurers had managed to gain by slaughtering Kreet’s entire family. As the youngest member of her clutch, she was still hiding in the little cubby high above, watching the torch bob back down the passage deeper into the tunnels that were all she knew of life. Of course, they had expected this would happen eventually. The life of a kobold was notoriously short and even at her young age she didn’t really hate the people that regularly came venturing down into her home.

Usually her family just hid in one of the myriad tunnels that branched off of the main paths. Before her own family was wiped out she had seen four other clutches massacred and she’d learned that was just the way of her kind. Oh, they fought back. They always fought back. She’d heard of other races that had no concept of ownership, but kobolds were certainly not one of those races! When a Big Person, or more often, Big Persons found the home of a clan of kobolds, the kobolds would attack without reservation until the last one was dead. She knew that the top-dwellers considered them evil because of that.

It was true there was no negotiating with a clan. There was only fight, kill or die. Later she would learn that there were alternatives, but no one she had met in her short life understood that. Now they were all dead, and the little box that had held her family’s five gold pieces lay smashed into splinters, stained red with the blood of her father. She wept silently, waiting for the torch light to fade completely from view before she ventured out into the little space that she had called home. She wasn’t worried about visibility. She could see in pitch darkness due to the unique structure of her eyes. But even the flicker from a distant torch would reveal more than she really wanted to see of what remained of her family. Her dark-vision would be blessedly monochromatic.

A sniffle escaped her snout, unbidden. It wasn’t much. Just the quietest of sniffles. But apparently it was enough. One of the Adventurers was still nearby and heard it. He had been sitting silently just beyond her line of sight in the darkness. He lit a torch and she tried to shrink back again, eyes wide with fear. She knew enough about Adventurers to know they never stopped investigating till their curiosity was sated. She was doomed.

The problem with kobolds was not a lack of bravery nor a lack of intelligence, really. No, the problem with kobolds was a lack of size, strength and technology. Any average Big Person could kill an entire clutch if equipped with even modest armor and a steel blade. It didn’t help that the kobold would be pounding on his knees with its fists or trying to scale his legs to attack more vital bits. Once a kobold saw red, they would not relent until they were dead - which didn’t take very long usually. On the rare occasions that a group of kobolds actually gained enough technology to equip themselves with more than small sticks and wear anything more substantial than thin cloth, they _could_ be formidable. But Kreet didn’t live in those circumstances. She was just one of a clan of kobolds living in an obscure network of caves in an even more obscure country above.

Security through obscurity had worked fairly well until now. But she heard the man below searching for her and she doubted she would see much security once she lost her obscurity. She was beginning to see red. Then a head came into view and she knew her time was up. She didn’t hesitate. It was in her blood. She attacked.

But, instead of spending her last seconds scratching at the hair of her fated doom, she found herself instead inside a cage. She rattled the bars and screamed; but the Big Person who held the cage just looked at her.

At first she was happy to see he wasn’t wearing any metal. If she could get free of this cage, she very likely would be able to actually scratch him enough to make him bleed - and that would be a pretty significant victory, especially for such a young kobold.

“Calm down, little one,” the Big Person said in her language. This startled her. She had never heard a Big Person speak in the kobold tongue before. She’d never even heard _tales_ of a Big Person that could talk properly. She looked at the huge head peering into her cage and cocked her head to one side. The red left her vision.


	2. Captured

Another voice came down the passage, and - for a moment - she saw one of the other Adventurers. His armored plate gleaming in his own torchlight. The Big Person holding her responded in that too-loud tongue of theirs, but with anger clearly in his voice. The other seemed to shrug, said something back in an offended tone, and returned the way he had come.

“Don’t worry little one. I’m not going to hurt you. I am returning to my home and I’m going to take you with me. I’m going to have to cover your cage though; the sunlight would hurt your eyes. But I’ll be right here.”

Kreet was too young to be anything but naive, and she had no experience with anything that could talk to her except other kobolds, and they had always been trustworthy. So she didn’t hesitate to talk back to the man.

“You can talk to Kreet?”

“Oh! So you _can_ talk? Yes little one, I can talk to you.”

“You killed my clutch? All dead?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Your family is gone, so you might as well come with me, Kreet.”

“Why don’t you kill me?” she wondered sincerely, as a cloth was placed over the cage and she was rocked back and forth as the man walked out of her caverns.

“Why should I kill you, little one? Would you kill me if you could?”

Kreet was puzzled. “Yes. But I can’t. I am trapped in here.”

“No, you can’t. But I don’t want to kill you, little one.”

“Why not? You killed my clutch.”

“That was not me. The other people I was with did that. I tried to stop them, but they have Gold Fever. I will not continue with them. I will go back to my home instead. Would you like to live with me? I would like to have someone to talk to.”

Once again Kreet didn’t understand. His words were clear enough, but his meaning was beyond her. “Would I like to live with you? Kreet doesn’t understand. Kreet would like to live with her clutch, but they are dead. Kreet wouldn’t like to live anywhere now.”

“Oh, I think you would. You might even enjoy it.”

“Will there be other kobolds?” she asked hopefully, knowing that she shouldn’t think such things. Hope was not a survival factor in her life, but she was too young to have it completely removed from her psyche.

“No, Kreet. Only me and a cat.”

Kreet felt her heart sink. “Then I wouldn’t like to live there,” she said simply.

Though the cloth over her cage was dark, she could still see the light getting brighter. Then, soon, she was outside. The sounds were different. The smells were different. She’d heard of the outside before of course. But she’d never _been_ there before.

“Are we outside?”

“Yes Kreet. Are you okay?” said the Big Person.

“My eyes hurt. It is too much light.”

“I know. I’m sorry Kreet. I’d let you go back into the caves, but there are no more kobolds there. I’ve been searching for your clan in there for a year or more. Yours was the last clan left. You’d starve or worse without them. Please accept my hospitality, Kreet. I would like to be your friend.”

“You are Big People. Big People can’t be friends to kobolds. I think you might be crazy.”

The Big Person made a weird noise. Something like coughing. But then it talked again. “I think you are probably right, Kreet. Please, I would like you to call me by my name. Could you do that for me?”

Kreet shrugged in an oddly human way, though her captor couldn’t see her. “Sure! What is your name?”

The Big Person responded with an odd noise. Though Kreet couldn’t properly form the word, she did her best given her vocabulary to repeat the sound he had made.

“Ka'Plo?”

“Yes! That is very close! Call me Ka'Plo, Kreet. Maybe we will be friends, you and me?”

“Ka'Plo is crazy. But Kreet has no choice. I will be your friend if I can’t kill you.”

“ _Can_ you kill me?” Ka'Plo asked while cage swung to his walking rhythm.

Kreet laid down and wrapped her tail around one of the bars for support. “No. I can’t kill you. I’ll be your friend.”

Then she went to sleep.


	3. Ka'Plo

Kreet slept for a long time. It had been long since last she’d slept. She vaguely wondered why her mother hadn’t woken her by now, but the rocking of her bed was too soothing, so she remained sleeping.

But then the rocking stopped, and she opened her eyes., Then she remembered her circumstances, and began to cry quietly.

“Kreet? Are you awake?”

“I am awake, Ka'Plo. I am sad.”

“I know Kreet. I’m going to take the cover off your cage. It’s night now, and we’re outside.”

The darkness was lifted, but the light wasn’t too bright now. Kreet looked at the man she knew as Ka'Plo. He wore plain pale cloth that was wrapped with a similarly colored belt. He looked nothing like the other Adventurers she had seen.

“I have to pee,” she said to him.

“That may be a problem, Kreet. I’ll need to let you out of your cage. Will you run away if I let you out?”

Kreet looked around her. They were on a hill beside a large boulder. There were woods not far away, and a road ran by them in front of the woods. She considered if she should run away.

“No. I have nowhere to go. You haven’t hurt me yet. I’ll stay with you.”

“Okay, Kreet. I don’t want to keep you as a prisoner, nor as a pet. If you don’t want to stay with me, you don’t have to. But you will probably die if you leave me, Kreet. I don’t want you to die, and I don’t think you do either. So please, don’t run away.”

“I will run away if I want to, Ka'Plo. But I don’t want to now. I want to pee.”

He laughed at her again. “Okay Kreet. You go do your business and come back when you’re done. I’m tired though, and need to sleep soon.”

The door of the cage lifted and she looked around, then up at Ka'Plo. She noticed then that he had white hair, both in his beard and on his head. “You’re old,” she said, then looked around for an appropriate place.

“Yes, Kreet. I’m old. Does that bother you?”

Kreet found a suitable place nearby and relieved herself. “Yes. You are easy to kill. If someone wants to kill Kreet, you won’t stop them.”

“Fair enough,” he said, turning away. “But I will try not to let that happen. Also, you really shouldn’t pee in front of other people, Kreet.”

“No,” she agreed. “It is a vulnerable position. But you are my friend, right? You won’t kill me, so it’s okay.”

“I suppose so,” Ka'Plo said as she finished and stepped back into the cage.

“Kreet, you don’t have to go back in the cage.”

“No? Where should I go?”

“I meant what I said before, Kreet. You can leave, if you want. I’m hoping you won’t want to leave, but you can. I can’t be guarding you day and night.”

“I don’t want to leave. But where should I go if not back in the cage?”

“Well, anywhere you want, really. Are you hungry?”

At this Kreet’s eyes lit up - quite literally - in the dark.

“Food! Do you have food? I am very hungry!”

“Sure,” said the man, pulling some things out of his pack. “Here, I’ve got a lot of jerky, and I picked some mushrooms and moss while you were sleeping. When we get back to my home tomorrow, I have much more.”

Kreet snatched up the food eagerly. She gobbled the moss instantly, though it wasn’t the sweet kind she liked best. The mushrooms, she picked through.

“You pick bad mushrooms, Ka'Plo; some of these would kill me. But it’s okay - I know the good kind from the bad kind.”

“I’m sorry, Kreet. I know kobolds, but I don’t know mushrooms, I’m afraid. Would it be okay if I light a fire? I’d like to make some soup.”

Kreet looked at the man’s eyes. “A small fire, right? I don’t like big fires.”

“A small fire, I promise,” he assured her, and set to work. Kreet nibbled some more mushroom and then crept up behind the man. She watched him work his flint until he managed to light some dry grass, then he stacked on some small sticks until they caught as well.

“You are a mage,” she said flatly.

The man coughed again, then said, “No Kreet. I’m no mage. I just know how to make fire. This kind of stone makes the sparks, see? Then I just make the sparks go into a little dry grass.”

“My father was a mage. He could make fire. Sometimes,” she said, watching the flickering flames as if entranced.

“Did he use stones like these?”

“No. He used a special stick. But it took longer. Big People do everything better.”

“I doubt that, Kreet.”

Later on, when the soup was ready, the man offered her some.

“Be careful, it’s very hot. Just sip it, like this…”

Kreet took the perfectly shaped bowl carefully, marveling at it’s craftsmanship.

“OW!” Kreet cried, unable to duplicate the sipping that the Big Person had done.

“Oh, I’m sorry Kreet! Just wait till it cools down.”

“My tongue hurts,” the little kobold cried.

“Here, have some cool water,” he said, offering her a cup. “There, does that help?”

Kreet nodded. But a few minutes later she was fine and tried the soup again. The taste was very strange, but also very good. Finally, when she’d had enough, she sat back against the rock they had sheltered by.

“What are those? Are they stars?” she asked while Ka'Plo doused the fire.

“Oh yes, they are! Do you know about stars?”

“My brothers used to tell me about them. They’re beautiful sparklies!”

Ka'plo laid out his bedroll and crawled inside while Kreet watched.

“You will sleep in there?” she asked, curious.

“I will. It gets cold outside at night. I have an extra blanket if you need one.”

Kreet crawled under the bedroll with the man. “I don’t need one. You are warm enough.”

The man seemed startled, but then carefully put his arm around her. Soon he was sleeping. She was surprised how much his snoring sounded like her clan’s. She wasn’t sleepy herself, yet she was very warm and comfortable. She decided against killing Ka'Plo in his sleep after all. He was a good man, and, importantly, he wasn’t one of the murderous Adventurers that killed her clutch. Instead she wriggled all the way under the blanket with just her snout pointing out, and eventually, she went to sleep too.

She had a brief moment of panic when the man turned over in the middle of the night. She was afraid that he might crush her, but he shifted to make room for her, and she got her tail out from underneath him, finally managing to go back to sleep.


	4. New Home

The morning was bright to her eyes, but not intolerable. Ka’Plo said the sun was behind the clouds, and so she was spared the blinding, direct sunlight. Still, she asked him for a bit of thin cloth that she happily took and fashioned a sort of blindfold that she wore the rest of the day, - that still allowed her to see without hurting her eyes.

“You’re very good with those hands of yours, Kreet!”

“Do you think so? I’m not as good as my mother was, but she did show me how to do things. I could fix your covering if you want me to,” she said as they packed up and began to resume their journey.

“When we get home,” he said, “that would be wonderful! I am a poor man, Kreet. You should know that. But I have a modest cabin in some woods not too far away. We should get there by noon.”

They started walking down the road, but Kreet began to find it hard to keep up with Ka'Plo’s stride. When he asked her if she would like to ride on his shoulders, she practically beamed with joy.

“Kreet, you should tell me when something’s bothering you! I’ve tired you out trying to keep up with me, haven’t I?”

“No!” she shouted, trying to climb up his legs, belying her protests. “I’m not tired! I can keep up with you fine!” she said, her muscles protesting. “But if you want me to ride on your shoulders, I will not mind.”

“Here,” he said, squatting down so she could climb up. “Hop aboard, Kreet.”

They passed a few travelers on the way, and Kreet was deathly afraid they would see her and kill her - but in fact they just gave her an odd look and continued on.

“Kreet, you should learn some of our words, don’t you think? Can you say this?” “See if you can say ‘hello’”

It took some repetition, but before long she was greeting the other travelers with a hearty “Hello, Sir, or Hellow, Ma’am!”. However, Ka'Plo had to explain the difference between “Sir” and “Ma'am” a few times.

“Don’t be silly, Ka'Plo. Of course I know the difference between male and female. But it’s easier to tell in a clan. You know everybody. You Big People are so wrapped up in clothes there’s no way to tell!”

“Well, usually our women have longer hair, though that’s not always true either. Only the men have beards too, so that’s another way to tell.”

“The elves don’t have beards,” Kreet stated, rather proud of her knowledge she’d learned at her father’s knee.

“That is true. Also, when they talk, women’s voices are higher pitched. Breasts are another difference.”

“What are breasts?”

Ka'Plo laughed. He’d finally explained laughter to her some time earlier. Then he held his hands under his chest. “These things. Women have them. Men don’t.”

Kreet scratched her head, but accepted it. When the next travelers passed, she spotted them.

“The one on the left is a woman, isn’t she? She has breasts!”

“Yes, that’s a woman alright.”

Kreet looked down at herself. “I don’t have breasts.”

Ka'Plo sighed. “No Kreet. Kobolds don’t have breasts. They’re for ‘nursing’, and your kind doesn’t 'nurse’.”

“Nursing?” Kreet said the unfamiliar word, and Ka'Plo explained as best he could in a language that had few words for the subject.

Finally, they turned off the road, onto a small path and into some woods where Ka'Plo’s cabin stood decrepit but serviceable.

“I wish I had breasts,” Kreet said, climbing down from Ka'Plo’s shoulders.

“Kreet, even if your kind had them, you would be too young anyway. And there’s no good in wishing for something you can’t have. Now, let me show you around.”

Kreet understood the wisdom of his words. She would never be Big. She would always have a tail. She would always have a snout. Her scales would never be skin. She would never have a beard. She would never have breasts. She would never have a clan. She would never fit in.

———————–

Ka'Plo didn’t fully understand why Kreet looked so sad when he showed her the little cabin, but he knew she’d been through a lot. After she’d been introduced to the cat and the little outhouse behind the one-room shack, he left her alone in a corner to cry a little while he busied himself getting some food together for them. 

He looked at her occasionally while he cooked. Most people would see a little monster at best - all fangs, claws, scales and tail. But he had spent years studying her kind. He’d even adopted another many years ago, though that hadn’t ended up well; for him or the ‘bold. And now he’d killed the last of the kobolds in the caverns too. True, he hadn’t literally killed them, but he might as well have. In his studies he had become a local expert and had mapped most of the major passages of the caverns here, primarily looking for kobolds. They were elusive enough creatures, but every time some group of Adventurers would go into the caverns and run across a clan he would learn more about them by careful examination of the carcasses left behind.

Yet he was poor. No matter his expertise in the little dragonlings, there simply was no wealth to be had in being a kobold scholar. This last band had needed a guide, he had needed their coin, so he had agreed - and now regretted that decision with every fiber of his being. There had been only one kobold clan left in the caverns. He could not have imagined that this group would actually find them! But find them they had, and they had done what everyone before them had done. Mass slaughter. They had cut the angry little lizards down without hesitation. They had to have _some_ reason for all that armor and weaponry of course, and slaying kobolds had become that reason far too quickly.

Despite this slaughter, a miracle had happened. This one little kobold had survived. She would be his life, he swore. He would do anything he could to keep her alive. When he had slightly 'revised’ the Adventurer’s map after the slaughter, he slid it back into their pack with a glad heart. They would never emerge from the caverns again. It was inadequate retribution for what they’d done to Kreet’s family, but it would have to do.


	5. A Wonderful Life

A year later Kreet had settled into her life with the old monk rather well. Visitors were few, and when she was able to greet them in the Common tongue, they usually had no problem with her. For his part, Ka'Plo was enjoying every day with her. In his time teaching Kreet how to speak in the Common tongue, he was constantly learning more about her life. Yet every day her memories became fuzzier, so his copious notes were dwindling. He began to work on his Kobold Compilation in earnest, knowing that he would be very lucky indeed if he were able to complete the massive multi-volume set before his life was over.

For the most, part his visitors were either members of his sect, sent to check up on him, or the local farmer who delivered their groceries. Technically, the shack belonged to the farmer, but he and his family had known Ka'Plo for years and seemed sincerely happy to help the old man. They had a daughter who came over frequently to play with Kreet, and the kobold learned a lot about human socialization from the time she spent playing with the girl. Of course, initially, the family was none too keen on the relationship, but as time passed they even accepted Kreet into their own home on occasions for sleepovers.

When she did so, Kreet made sure to be on her best behavior at all times. She dressed appropriately, made sure to keep her body covered at all times, and ate with as much dignity as a kobold could muster sitting at a table. Fortunately, the farmer’s family were a friendly lot and she didn’t suffer from the stigma of being a kobold in a human world when at home or at the farmer’s house. Her infrequent trips into town, however, were a different matter altogether. Eventually she refused to go at all unless Ka'Plo really insisted, and those were generally trips to the shop where she was able to help the old man choose items that she would need for mending things around the shack.

While her recollection of her family might be fading, the pain of their loss was ever sharp in her memory. Whenever she would see an Adventurer in town or wandering the paths beyond the wood around her cabin, her eyes would take on a red hue, and she would not speak until he or she was out of sight.

“They’re not all bad, Kreet. They’re just out in the world, trying to make a way for themselves like everyone else you know,” Ka'Plo said at the dinner table one summer evening while he picked his teeth over yet another delicious meal Kreet had made. She had, in fact, become quite a good cook.

“They make their way in the world by killing others. I wish they would all just die,” she said spitefully glancing towards the window where she had seen a small band on the road a mile or so in the distance earlier.

“That is not the way of Pelor that you were taught Kreet,” he said to her with disapproval.

“No sir. I am sorry for my transgression,” she responded as if by rote. Though she saw the wisdom in the moral teachings that Ka'Plo had taught her, she also recognized that she was not truly a child of the light. A kobold is a child of the dark and the underworld, and she always felt like somewhere, somehow, she was betraying her kind. Not that she wanted to worship Nerull by any means, she loved the old man and sincerely loved his religion. But old associations are hard to break. Her clan had not worshiped Nerull either, of course. They hadn’t known what worship even meant.

That evening, Kreet and Ka'Plo sat on the small porch as the evening dimmed. She removed the odd mechanism she had designed for her eyes now that the sun had set and she could see normally again.

“Ka'Plo,” she started, taking up her knitting again. “Do you think I will ever meet another kobold?”

“That’s hard to say, Kreet. Your kind are rare around here, and they don’t live above ground. Most that are caught are put to work as slaves in the mines. Do you miss them?”

Kreet sighed, mimicking human expression. “I… I don’t know anymore. I’ve been around Big People too long. But, someday, I’ll mature. I would like to survive to raise my own clutch.”

“My! Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself young one? By my understanding you’ve a good number of years yet before you’ve reached the egg-laying age!”

“I know,” she said, turning back to her work. Minutes later, she resumed the conversation. Long stretches of silence were common between them, and she liked this time with him. “But I can’t lay eggs without a mate, you know. I’m not a chicken.”

The old man stood up and held his hands out to her. She set aside her needlework and happily accepted this embrace. Even though the farmer’s family and the other monks were friendly enough towards her, she couldn’t help but notice that they never touched her if they could avoid it. Only the old man treated her as a true equal, and she had loved him for that.

“No, you’re no chicken, Kreet. I’m not feeling well though. I’m going to go to bed early today. Would you mind cleaning up for me?”

“Certainly sir,” she said, and she watched him open the rickety door for the last time. In the morning he was dead, and Kreet was alone again.


	6. Monastery

Her first refuge was the farmer’s family. But, though they had been friendly enough towards her during her time with the old man, it was clear that they weren’t comfortable actually raising a kobold. The decision was taken from them anyway when the monks came to clean up his house and they discovered his will. They took his unfinished work on kobolds, which would sell well in years to come at his bequest, but they also were required to take in the kobold named Kreet as a payment of sorts for his blessing to publish his works.

A few days after the funeral, Kreet was bundled up onto a cart and taken to the Monastery. The monks were austere and not disposed to talk. She moved into a special cell made just for her. She did appreciate the work they’d put into it, to make it comfortable, but she missed the old man and she sat in a stone chair in her cell for hours, knitting for the monks but humming songs that Ka’Plo had taught her while wishing he was back.

He had told her, not long before he died, about his complicity in the massacre of her family. Perhaps he had felt his life was coming to an end soon and needed to be absolved of that crime. She was too young to consider this at the time, but later, when she had learned more of life and people, she thought about it. She was happy that she had done so - absolved him of his guilt - at that time. Young as she was, she could not fix blame on this person who had quite surely saved her life.

Yet her years at the monastery were not the bleak solitude it seemed they would be at first. Two boys were delivered to the monastery as Initiates and she befriended them both. Since she was no human girl, the awkwardness that they might have felt did not appear, and the three spent many happy hours together. For her part, she appreciated their boisterous attitude when the three would manage to get away from the strict watchfulness of the older monks. Though she could not laugh as they did, she nonetheless could enjoy their company in the same way, and was every bit as mischievous as they were. She got in trouble with the older monks as well, but she resented that her punishment was always solitary confinement while the boys received direct physical punishment.

Not that Kreet was any glutton for pain, but it certainly bothered her that she was treated so radically different than the boys, even though she’d committed the same ‘crimes’. She was never sure if it was due to her race or her sex, both of which were foreign to the monastery apart from Kreet herself. Yet, the boys also brought her secret information. She learned her first cantrips by reading the books the boys would smuggle back to her while they explained what they had learned in the Acolyte school. While she was always well behind their capabilities as Clerics in training, still her progression was never more than a few months behind their own and occasionally she might grasp a subject better than either of them.

And then one day the boy named “Karl” fell out of a tree. The three had been in a small wood nearby, climbing and generally doing the terribly risky and dangerous things kids do at that age when Karl lost his grip while jumping from one branch to another and fell to the ground, hitting his head sharply against a rock at the bottom. “Brand”, the other boy, was panic stricken.

“Kreet! I think he’s dead! _KREET!_ What should we do!?”

Kreet examined the boy. The blood was pooling under his head and there was no reaction in his eyes, yet he still breathed.

“Brand,” she said, trying to summon all the confidence she could muster. “Did you learn that healing spell you were telling me about last week? Do you know how to perform it?”

But the boy looked at her with eyes wide, uncomprehending. “I don’t remember! Kreet, we’ve got to _do_ something!”

She thought for a minute. She was fairly sure she could remember it, but really it didn’t matter. If it worked, she might save him. If it didn’t, he would probably die anyway. It simply couldn’t hurt to try. But they’d need help from the monks either way.

“Brand, I need you to run back and get your Master, the Cleric. He’s the best at the healing arts. Tell him what’s happened and get him back here as soon as you can.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, but she shooed him away. “Go you idiot! Every second counts and if you stop running for a minute you may be too late. Go!”

The boy’s feet flew and he was out of sight in an instant. But Kreet had already turned back to Karl. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the book she’d read. The words formed in her mind and she spoke them aloud, holding her hands near - but not touching - the broken skull. At first she didn’t think anything was happening, but she closed her eyes tighter. She knew that this kind of magic _required_ belief. It could not work if you didn’t _believe_ it could. Well, she had believed. She believed more than anything else in the world. She was sitting here, with her friend, and his head was healing itself. The bones were stitching back together. The blood stopped flowing, through the power of Pelor. His power was flowing through her - from her brain where the belief was, down her neck, across her chest, down her arms and out of her claws into the boy’s damaged skull.

It wasn’t a question of it it was working or not; she _knew_ it was working. The question was simply if it was too late or not. She knew she was still too young to handle the amount of power required for a major injury, her faith too insecure. She heard a muffled crack that might have been a twig, or might have been the skull knitting itself back together.

She kept it up for the full half-hour it took for the Cleric, named Quint, and some other monks to return with her friend Brand. She did not open her eyes until the Cleric put his hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough Kreet. I’ll take it from here. You’ve done well.”

She opened her eyes, still wearing the lenses that darkened the sunlight, and looked at the experienced monk as he closed his eyes and began an incantation. She caught a few words, though she couldn’t have summoned it herself. It was a probe of a sort. He was examining the boy’s condition, and specifically the condition of the skull and one leg that she hadn’t noticed before. The skull’s condition was surprisingly good, considering. The leg was badly broken though, and she’d done nothing for it. Though no words were exchanged verbally, she was still linked to the power of Pelor, and she heard his words through that link.

“Very, very good Kreet. We need to talk about this ability you’ve learned, but you have undoubtedly saved this boy’s life. He will recover, though he may not awaken for another day or two. His brain must mend itself. But now, remove your link to the great Pelor and let me take your place. I will work on his leg.”

She did as she was bid, and was led back to the monastery with the other boy. He was talking incessantly, obviously relieving his nervousness. But Kreet was silent, and she was worried. The Cleric had complimented her, but she also knew she had learned something she wasn’t supposed to learn. It could go bad for her. She couldn’t regret what she’d done, but she also worried about her future. It had been nearly two years since the old man had died and she had come to live here, but she knew she was still too young to face life outside the monastery without support. Most likely she would be killed or enslaved.

When the Cleric came back with the other boy, she stood inside the grand hallway doors as he entered, but he neglected to acknowledge her presence. Instead he went straight to the Abbot’s inner chambers, so she returned to her cell. She prayed all night as fervently as she knew how. To say she lacked faith would be untrue. She had seen what Pelor could do. The power to heal had to be coming from somewhere, and if that somewhere happened to be named Pelor, so much the better. Inside though, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was doing something selfish. She wasn’t praying for the boy’s recovery. She was praying for her continued shelter in the monastery. Life was monotonous here, and arduous at times, but it was, above all else, safe.


	7. Cleric

She left her cell in the early morning hours to the call of the religious service held at that hour. She liked this time of day. The other monks, even the most fervent, were barely awake and went through the motions of the service as if sleepwalking. Even the Abbot, who led the group in prayers, was uninspired. There was something about being the only person who was truly awake that she enjoyed. She read the appendix of the holy books while the chants continued, though she never lost her place in the chanting either. She could separate her mind in that way, something few men could manage. The words she read were cryptic, but she felt there was some meaning to them anyway if she could only understand them better.

Then a shadow fell over her book and she looked at the man who had stepped into the pew beside her. It was the Cleric Quint, and he was looking at her. He was not sleeping at all. She closed the book guiltily and looked away - back to the altar where she was supposed to be focused. She tried to ignore the feeling that the Cleric was staring at her, but try as she might her eyes kept straying back towards him. All through the service he stayed beside her, not saying anything to her but with those penetrating eyes locked on her whenever she should glance towards him. To say she was nervous was an understatement. By the time the service was concluded, she was visiblly shaking.

She stood to go and a hand held her shoulder. She gulped hard and looked back at the Cleric with pitiable, tear filled eyes. She tried to say his name, but she found herself unable to speak.

“Kreet, come with me.”

She hung her head and nodded once, and followed him up the aisle and through a side passage to the Abbot’s private chambers.

“Wait here,” the Cleric said, and walked into another room. A few minutes later, the Abbot himself, still clothed in the vestments of the early morning service, walked by and into the room, closing the heavy door behind him. He didn’t look at her.

For a while, she thought about running away. But that was silly, she knew. If she ran away, what would that gain her? She wanted to stay here! Then, as the minutes passed by, she heard muffled voices within. She knew she could creep to the door and put her head against the door, allowing the bones of her skull to amplify the sound within, but that would be wrong. She’d done enough wrong already. So she just sat and became ever more convinced that they were discussing physical punishment as well as banishment. She had heard of some cults that practiced such rites. She had been disciplined plenty of times of course - mostly when she had first arrived and didn’t understand the rules. But this was probably worse. She couldn’t un-learn what she had learned. Nothing short of death or severe brain damage could make that happen, and she was none too sure that this wasn’t precisely what they were talking about.

The minutes ticked by. Then finally the door opened and the Abbot walked out. He still did not look at her, but now he was in his normal attire. The Cleric followed close behind and shut the door. She looked up at him and his face softened.

“Hold my hand, Kreet. We need to talk. But not here. We will talk in my chambers.”

He walked with her, making sure to keep his stride that which she could match without too much effort. She appreciated that, and she tried her best not to read anything positive into his gentle looks. Hope was a drug that dulled the senses. Better to expect the worst and be wrong, than to expect a miracle that never happened.

Finally they arrived at his room and he stepped inside and sat behind a large table. She did not miss the fact that he closed the door solidly behind her.

“Kreet,” he began, “this monastery has been here for a thousand years. Did you know that?”

The little kobold nodded. She’d read the history many times in fact. She couldn’t list all the Abbots as some could, but she knew the major ones at least.

“A thousand years, give or take a few decades. In that time, despite what some would have you believe, there _have_ been changes to our Rule. Minor changes, but over time those changes build up. Given a thousand years time, the changes are significant. But there are some rules that have never changed. One of them is the prohibition against female Clerics.”

She hung her head. Of course she knew the monastery was male-only. There were a few exceptions, but very very few. There was a scullery maid that worked in the laundry who had been left as an orphan some time back. And there was an old lady who lived just outside the monastery and helped in the garden. A widow, she believed. But other than those two, she was the only other female here.

“Do you know why that rule is in place, Kreet?”

Kreet looked up at him. He looked sad. She felt sad. She shook her head slowly from side to side.

“Kreet, neither do I. I do understand why the monastery is male-only. Devotion to Pelor is our duty, privilege and reason for our existence here. Mixing sexes is not conducive to that devotion. The natural urges of men towards women and vice-versa is a powerful one and we don’t want to lose our candidates to that temptation. But there are convents dedicated to Pelor as well. They produce fine Clerics too. I’m even aware of a monastery, far far away, that allows both sexes. But that is not our Rule here, Kreet.”

Kreet brightened up. Maybe he was going to offer her a chance to live at a nunnery instead of excommunicating her altogether. She would not like to move again. It felt like she had moved so many times she would never have a home, but it would certainly be better than being thrown out into the world on her own.

“In our Rule, females cannot become Clerics. They can’t even be monks here. Do you know why we accepted you into the monastery?”

“Because Ka'Plo requested it?” she offered, clearing her throat after having been silent so long.

“Well, yes. But more accurately, he _demanded_ it in exchange for his research. This monastery has grown rather wealthy after publishing his work on kobolds like you, but he refused to allow that publication if we wouldn’t accept you.”

“But he is dead. You don’t need to keep me anymore,” Kreet pointed out.

“Kreet, we are servants of Pelor. We do not lie, nor cheat. You surely know that by now. No, the Abbot accepted you, though it was against our Rule, because of Ka’Plo’s demand but also because he was a very good friend of Ka'Plo. He made a promise to raise you as our boys are raised. But you have put that decision into question. As a kobold, you are - at least to young human eyes - sexless. You do not offer the distractions that bringing a human girl in would cause. But to break another Rule and allow you to become a Cleric… that is a very different matter.”

“I regret that I learned of things I shouldn’t have,” she said honestly.

“I am quite sure you do, though that boy doesn’t regret it. I don’t regret it. And Kreet, the Abbot himself doesn’t regret it. You have learned some fairly sophisticated abilities, and you learned them second-hand through the boys and their books. And you have learned those abilities _better_ _and more thoroughly_ than the boys under my own tutelage. Kreet, you are a prodigy. Do you know that word?”

The kobold shook her head again, feeling once again as if she had failed in a fundamental way. She could guess what it meant, but she didn’t know. Her grasp of the language was still incomplete.

“It means you are gifted, Kreet. You have a gift of learning and applying what you learn. It’s not intelligence - that’s for mage work. It’s a sort of Wisdom, and it’s not something than can be learned by memorization or perfection of some recipe like the alchemists do. It is within the student from the outset, and it’s the Master’s job to bring it out and bring it to it’s highest possible state. If he does his job right, the student becomes his own Master and carries on without him at some point. At that point, he is a true Cleric, ready to go into the world and hone his devotion to his god and his craft as an Apostle. And in our case, to do Good in the world. To bring light to dark places.”

“Kobolds like dark places,” Kreet said. It was a simple fact.

“The phrase is a metaphor, Kreet. Some dark places can be full of light, and some bright places can be very dark. It is not sunlight and shadow we’re talking about here Kreet. It is Good and Evil. For most humans, kobolds are creatures of evil. Ka'Plo’s work has begun to change that perception. You could change it even more. Kreet…”

Kreet sucked in her breath. Whatever revelation the Cleric was leading to, this was it. His words boded well, but her life had taught her never to Hope. She was trying her very best not to.

“Kreet, I am going to teach you to be a Cleric.”

This time, a dam burst in her eyes. She let out a squeal of joy that she couldn’t with-strain and her eyes fairly poured with tears.

“Kreet… little one! Please!” the Cleric said, and immediately she choked back the tears, closed her eyes and composed herself.

“I am sorry for that, Master,” she said. “I had not hoped…”

“Well don’t get too worked up. I will teach you in private, here in my chambers every day after the evening service. I don’t want you to go spreading it all around. Some of the older monks will object no doubt. Not only are you not male, but you’re a kobold. It will be hard for them to accept. But it’s not a secret. I know you’ll tell your friends, and I don’t want you to feel guilty if I were to demand secrecy from you. No, you can tell them. Indeed, I’d like you to work with them as well. You can learn from each other. Just don’t go talking about it to the other monks if you don’t need to. The Abbot has agreed with this course of action. He is a man of few words to Acolytes like you, but he has specifically requested me to carry his regards to you. He has high hopes for you, Kreet. And, even though they don’t know it, your very race may depend on you succeeding. Do your best.”

Kreet was holding back the tears as best she could, but they would not stay. “I am an Acolyte? The same as Karl and Brand?”

The Cleric stood up and opened a drawer and pulled something soft and dull yellow from it. Kreet’s eyes grew as large as saucers.

“Kreet, remove your clothes and receive your Acolyte robes. From this day on, you are an Acolyte of Pelor.”

Kreet didn’t hesitate. She stood naked before the Cleric as he placed the garment over her head, reciting an incantation made to bless the robe and it’s wearer. It had obviously been made to fit her specifically with accommodation both for her ever-widening hips as well as her tail. She did not fail to understand the significance of that. Someone had been considering this for her prior to yesterday’s incident. She looked at the Cleric.

He smiled, knowing what she was thinking. “No Kreet. It wasn’t me. It was the Abbot. He keeps a closer eye on things around here than you may suspect. He has known of your abilities for some time. It was news to me though! Now, hold still while I pin your badge of office on. Acolyte level 1. Congratulations, Kreet. You should be proud. I know Ka'Plo would be too. Now go back to your cell. You have tomorrow off so you can sleep all day.”

Kreet stood at attention while the Cleric knelt to her level and pinned the badge on her chest. She had never felt prouder in her life. She wanted to shout it to the world. But she knew better. She would be quiet about it. Besides, the yellow robe and badge would scream it to the world anyway. But she would not be quiet about it with her two friends. They would celebrate in some fashion, most likely in a fashion that the Abbot would never have approved of!

She turned to the door, but then stopped and turned back to the Cleric.

“Sir,” she said as humbly, and in the best Common that she could muster. “Thank you for this. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. And thank the Abbot for me too. This means the world to me. This is my life. I will do my best to honor you both.”

The Cleric smiled and knelt to the little kobold’s level and hugged her warmly. “I know you will, Kreet. Thank you, for what you did for Karl. That was very self-sacrificing of you.”

He planted a kiss on her snout then, before shooing her out of his office.

Little did he know that, indirectly, that kiss would lead to her expulsion a few years later.


	8. Guiding Bolt

Kreet lay awake in her cell for a long time that morning before finally succumbing to nervous exhaustion. Becoming an officially recognized Acolyte was reason enough. Knowing the Abbot supported that decision was even more inspiring. But for all that her mind kept straying back to that kiss. She realized that, as much as she had learned from Ka'Plo and her time here in the Monastery about humans, she knew shockingly little about their social life outside of the Cloister. Being raised in what was essentially an all-male institution certainly didn’t help. There were certainly other boys here besides Brand and Karl, but she didn’t spend much time with them. There was a sort of bonding between the three of them since they’d all been outsiders. But they were all too young to really care much. Their lives were essentially tied up around avoiding getting punished and unbridled play when they could get away.

But now she realized just how much of an outsider she really was. She looked down at herself. She’d never given much thought to just how different she really was from everyone around her. She’d seen pictures of kobolds and knew her body would start changing soon. Her hips would widen to the ridiculous proportions she had seen of the female kobold shape. Her tail would lengthen. Her horns would continue growing. She would lose the inherent cuteness of her youth. Standing only 3 feet tall, at best she might grow another foot. The boys were already much bigger than she was, and that difference would only increase.

Why had he kissed her? The hug was clear enough. It was a comforting touch, meant to reassure her that she was important to him. But she had never been kissed before, by anyone! Sure it was just a peck. Insignificant really. Just an expansion of the hug, she felt sure. It wasn’t even a gesture that was universal. Only humans and others with similar facial structures kissed. Her kind certainly didn’t! But she had read enough to know it was a significant action for them. It both bothered and delighted her in ways that she couldn’t understand. But she did understand one thing, the Cleric and the Abbot were going well beyond their Rule in allowing her to become an Acolyte. They saw potential in her, potential worth breaking that Rule for. She swore to Pelor that she would do her utmost to see that the potential would not be wasted. She would do her very best to become a true Cleric.

—————-

The days after that were hectic. She didn’t spend much time with Karl and Brand, though she did go with Brand to visit Karl as he was recovering. But she poured herself into her studies. During her formal class time with the Cleric she remained focused and only rarely did she find herself looking at his eyes and beard rather than the topic at hand. She also learned that being a Cleric was more than healing spells and magical wards. The purpose of a Cleric was to go out into the world and assist Pelor in bringing Light. She understood now that Light was a euphemism for Good, and _that_ she could support wholeheartedly. But the Cleric also pointed out that she had another goal as a Cleric. She would also be an ambassador for her race. Her diminutive size would never inspire fear, but if she kept herself on the right path and did Pelor’s will, she could show the world above that the kobold was not necessarily a creature of evil.

As part of the training to be a Cleric, she must also become proficient in Martial Arts though. Experience with blunt weapons was assumed of a true Cleric, but she found the training difficult. Her mind was keen, but her body just didn’t fit the regimens that were ascribed to the human cleric. In this area both her and her tutor were treading new ground. Weeks went by, but try as she might she simply could not muster the power or finesse of wielding a weapon more complex than a solid shaft.

The scaled skin of a kobold did not reveal brusing like human skin did, but she certainly felt them anyway as she trudged to the training area where the Cleric awaited after breakfast one morning. This was the day dedicated to physical training and she was not looking forward to it. She felt sore in a dozen places since the last training. Worse yet, she still was only training against a straw dummy. She had not dared to spar with Brand yet, and Karl was still limping from his fall. As she passed within the low stone wall that defined the training ground, she saw the Cleric sitting and meditating within. She headed to the weapon rack and took down her shortened stave, sighed, and began stretching exercises.

“Kreet, I’ve been thinking…” her Master said through closed eyes.

She halted her exercises and walked over to him. “Sir?”

“Do you know why we practice in the Martial Arts, Kreet?” he asked, opening his eyes.

“To defend ourselves and others when we begin our Apostlate,” she said, practically quoting from one of the handbooks.

“That’s right. We could do little good in the world if we got ourselves killed the minute something attacked us. And things _will_ attack us. Besides the minions of Darkness, simple wild beasts, marauders and bandits are everywhere out there in the wider world.”

“And they would kill me on sight,” she muttered, looking down at her clawed feet.

“Kreet, I’m not going to lie to you. They would. You will always be well-advised to stay with a group out there. You need to know how to handle some weapons anyway. But I think maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong. I’ve been trying to teach you human tactics which work well for humans. But they are perhaps not the best for a kobold like yourself. Perhaps we should try to learn kobold tactics instead. What do you know about kobold fighting?”

Kreet had brightened up until that last question. “I’m sorry, Sir, but I was very young when I was taken out of the caverns. I never learned anything about fighting. I’ve read all I could find about kobolds in the library, and Master Ka'Plo’s books of course. But they don’t say much about actual fighting. They go into great detail about some of the kobold traps, but it seems like when it got down to actual fighting, kobolds are just berserkers.”

The Cleric nodded agreement. “Which isn’t a very good tactic when your biggest fighters are only four feet tall. Nevertheless, Kreet, your Creator gave you some pretty impressive weapons given your size. Those teeth are not just for chewing up potatoes and beef. I notice you’ve been filing down your claws too. Stop doing that. You’re not a human and those are superior weapons you should keep honed. I’ve seen how nimble you are with them, and I notice they are partially retractable too. I’ve no fear you’ll accidentally hurt someone with them.”

“No Sir. I just… I didn’t want to stand out too much I guess,” Kreet explained sheepishly.

The Cleric put a hand on her shoulder, “Sorry Kreet. But… you will stand out whether or not your claws are filed. And then there’s your foot-claws. Kreet, those are deadly if you learn to use them.”

Kreet, who had been sitting before her Master, lifted a foot and looked at it. The modified sandal had been cut away to make room for her claws. “My feet?” she said, contemplating the massive claws there.

“Obviously. Let those claws grow back out again too. Kreet, those are your best weapons. With them and your massive legs behind them, you could eviscerate the most powerful wild animal. They won’t pierce armor, but there’s always a weakness somewhere you can exploit if you need to get physical with an opponent. Primarily you should avoid that, but you won’t always be able to. Today we’re going to work on ways you can best use those weapons. And I’m going to armor myself because once you’ve gotten good at their use, and let the grow back to their normal size, you could really cause damage.”

Kreet looked back at her foot and wiggled her massive ‘toes’. She smiled, just a little.

—————————–

From that day on, she no longer dreaded the Martial Arts training. After a few months her claws on her hands and feet had recovered their natural shape and sharpness. For his part the Cleric took his knowledge of the hand-to-hand Martial Arts techniques and tried to expand it to accommodate both the benefit of a strong tail and the detriment of short stature. He also implemented some moves the Dwarves had perfected, which turned shortness into a benefit. The training was still tough, but now Kreet felt it was a type she was comfortable with. Her legs and tail grew ever stronger.

However, her friend Karl had not grown stronger. As days became months it became clear that the limp that he had gained since the fall was not going away. The other boys had begun to call him Karl the Gimp behind his back and, on occasion, to his face. Not Brand of course, but neither Brand nor Kreet could be around to defend their friend at all times of course, and boys can be hurtful at that age.

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” Karl confessed one day when they were alone in their secret treehouse. Brand had been unable to join them that day so it was just Karl and Kreet this day.

“Karl, they’re just saying that to bug you. You know that, don’t you?”

Karl turned to her, tears in his eyes. “I know it, but it works damn it.”

Kreet scooted closer to her friend and wrapped an arm around him. “They call me _Gator_ you know,” she said, trying to comfort him.

Karl snorted and looked down at his friend. “Kreet, _We_ call you Gator too!”

“I know. But you are my friends. It’s different.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be a Cleric, Gator,” Karl said, laying back against the wooden floor. “I’ll never pass the Physicals now.”

“Of course you will Kay,” Kreet responded, using their nickname for him. “You’re the best Acolyte of us all!”

“Except for the Martial Arts. I saw you the other day in the Training Ground. Kreet, you’re incredible!”

“Aww, you’re just saying that because you love me,” Kreet teased.

“No, really. That high kick you did with your tail. That was really something!”

“Well, thank you Kay. But I hear you can do the Guilding Bolt already!”

Karl wiped the tears out of his eyes, which suddenly sparkled with Mischief. “I can! Wanna see?”

“Really! You really can?”

Karl nodded triumphantly.

“Prove it!” she challenged him and he stood up and walked to the door. Kreet crawled beside him, head between his legs and looking out to see the fabled Guiding Bolt spell. Outside the only thing visible was the leaves and branches of the trees around them. Their treehouse was very well placed, deep in the woods that grew beside the Monastery and as of yet had not been discovered by anyone besides the three who built it.

“What should I hit?” he asked, looking down at the snout poking out between his legs.

“See that black tree towards the left? Hit that!”

“You got something against that tree Gator?” he snickered.

“Sure, it’s a Guiding Bolt magnet! I hate that tree. Kill it Kay!”

The boy closed his eyes and concentrated, then he opened them again, serenity on his face.

Nothing happened.

“Wait, wait… I gotta get my head straight. Gator, could you move your head. You’re distracting me.”

Kreet moved to his right and poked her head out between his knee and the door edge.

“Now, let me try again.”

He repeated the ritual, hands outstretched towards the tree. When he opened them, a blinding flash of light leapt instantly from him to the tree, breaking the trunk with it’s force halfway up it’s length and parallel to their treehouse.

“WHOA! Did you see that?” Karl asked, impressed by his own magic.

But Kreet did not see it. Kreet was completely blind.

“Kreet! Are you alright?”

“Karl, I can’t see! Are my glasses still on?”

“No, they came off when you fell back. Here,” the boy said, putting her glasses in her hands, his beginning to shake. She put the dark glasses back on, but she was still completely blind.

“Oh shit,” she said.

“Oh shit is right! Maybe it will come back after a while.”

“Sure it will. Let’s just… wait here a while.”

They waited as the afternoon wore on.

“No, it’s alright, I’m not really a girl anyway. Not like you mean.” Kreet was saying. She was keeping her eyes closed, hoping that would help them recover. It also let her forget about her blindness for a while and not panic.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Anyway I was taking my clothes to the laundry and she was in that side room - you know, the one with the bath?”

Kreet nodded. Of course they all knew every inch of the Monastery and it’s grounds by now.

“Anyway, she was in the bath with the door wide open!”

“Oh wow! Did she see you?”

“I think so, Gator. I think she left it open on purpose!”

“So…” Kreet led him on, “…go on! What did you see?”

Karl held his hands under his breasts, but then realized Kreet couldn’t see him.

“Her jugs! I’m telling you those things were as big as melons, all bouncy and stuff!”

“Wow! Did you see the nipples!?” Kreet asked, every bit as interested as the boy.

He nodded, but again remembered she couldn’t see him. “Yeah! One anyway. Pink as your tongue!”

Kreet sighed. “I’ll never have nipples. I wonder what it’s like?”

“You’ll never have a dick either,” he said.

She estimated where he was and slapped him hard with her tail. “Guess what _you’ll_ never have?” she snickered.

“OW!” he cried.

“It’s getting late. They’re going to start wondering where we are,” she said.

“Want to try it again?” Karl asked hesitantly.

She nodded and put the sunglasses on. This time she also covered her eyes with her hands. Then she slowly opened her eyes.

She saw nothing.

She looked up at Karl, or at least where she thought he probably was. “Nothing. Karl, I’m scared,” she admitted.

“Me too, Kreet. I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t think about your eyes!” he cried.

“I didn’t either,” she cried along with him.

They hugged and cried together, Karl repeating “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” while Kreet tried to comfort him, but it was hard to comfort someone else when you’re panicking yourself.

Finally, though, they had to get down. Karl guided her and held her hand as they found their way back to the Monastery.


	9. Brand

In fact it took more than a week before her eyesight had fully recovered. Of course Karl had received suitable punishment for casting such a spell untutored, but it was nothing compared to his own self-recrimination. During that week he was at Kreet’s side constantly. ‘The Blind Gator and the Dumb Gimp’, Brand labelled them, but only when they were alone and even then without malice.

But finally things had gotten back to normal and, Kreet found herself spending more time with Brand actually. Karl was turning out to be the better magic-wielder of the three, and Kreet learned as much from him as her Master. While she was competent, compared to Karl she felt lost a lot of the time. Brand, on the other hand, was turning into a real Martial Artist. Once Kreet’s lessons with her Master had progressed far enough, she began to love sparring with Brand. Since their “sessions” were much less structured, she felt like she could really let loose on Brand as he was good at countering her moves. She learned to dart in and out too, as Brand wouldn’t hesitate to crush her in what he called the “grab and squish” tactic. Basically if he got a good grip on her at any point, she was practically doomed. The Master wouldn’t do that, but a real opponent certainly would. So she kept herself moving and kept her tail from straying behind with quick, random lashes back and forth and up and down.

Brand was no heavyweight. His own beard was just beginning to come in, but even so he posessed more of a tall, stringy-muscled form than burly. Yet even at his relatively meager 160 pounds he dwarfed Kreet quite literally and once he got a good grip on her, she simply hadn’t the mass to overcome it. Of course she could have wielded her claws on a real opponent - that she would never do on Brand - but still she had to yield once his arms got wrapped around her. The lone exception was the rare occasions when he grabbed her from the rear. Then her powerful leg muscles could be brought to bear and, even without using her talons, she could kick her way loose. His usual counter-attack was to wrap her lower legs and feet up in his arms when that happened, leaving her only able to beat at him ineffectually with her tail.

Fortunately he seemed to enjoy their sparring just as much as she did, and as the days grew colder later that year and the sparring ground was used less frequently, the sound of the two fighting in the yard were often the only sounds around while the other monks stayed indoors.

“Yield?” Brand was saying as they lay sprawled in the dirt.

“Yield,” Kreet puffed out, breathing hard and making a steam of breath that haloed around her head.

The boy released her and leaned back against the wall, himself breathing just as hard.

“Gator, if you’d have smacked me with that tail one more time,” he admitted as she sat beside him, “I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on anymore honestly!”

“Really? I should have kept at it,” she said between breaths.

“Looks like everyone’s inside. I can see the dinner hall lights from here. You ready to go in?”

“In a minute. It’s kind of nice out here when it’s quiet. And I’m too hot for the cold to bother me yet.”

Brand nodded. “Where’s Karl anyway?” he asked.

“Probably with that laundry girl again,” she replied, making a face of disgust that translated quite well to Brand.

“He better be careful or he’s going to become Daddy Gimp!” Brand said, concerned look on his face.

“No kidding. Last he talked to me about her it sounded like he had gotten to third goal, and he doesn’t talk about her anymore,” Kreet said, her eyes going wide.

“Not surprised. She’s a slut.”

“Better not let him hear you say that. He’s in _LOOOOOOVE!_ ”

“In love with a slut. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about you, Gator.”

She sighed, “No, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m a perma-virgin.”

“Well, you never know. I seem to see just a hint of booby there don’t I?”

Kreet looked down at herself. “I don’t know if that’s boob or if I’m just getting fat.”

“Do you get boobs?” Brand asked. Of course they’d been over this topic before. Kreet was the boys’ entry into the world of the Female without the consequences of being embarassed. But she didn’t mind, since they were hers into the world of Males and humans in general too.

“Some do, some don’t. No nipples though. My mom didn’t have boobs I don’t think, though I don’t remember her very well anymore.”

“Well I don’t know why you’d have them at all really,” Brand said, leaning on her. “Not like you make milk or anything.”

“Wanna hear a legend about that?”

“Ooo! A kobold legend about boobs! Sure!!!”

“It’s not one I remember as a child or anything, I read it in a book on kobold myths. You know how most kobolds say we come from dragons, right?”

“Sure. But without wings and fire it’s kinda stretching it don’t you think?”

“Yeah. But it’s just a myth. Anyway, this one goes that there was once this ferocious dragon and this guy goes out to kill it dressed in full plate mail.”

“Ha! You’d get roasted like a turkey in full plate against a dragon!” Brand laughed.

Kreet snorted. “It’s a myth, okay! That means you don’t take it literally!”

“Okay, okay. Go on…”

“So anyway the guy goes to slay this dragon, but the dragon is a female dragon, right? And she’s in heat, and this guy comes in…”

“Oh, I can see where this is going!” Brand said, making an obscene gesture with his fingers.

Kreet nodded, “Exactly. They fell in love and had babies. But the babies came out as kobolds. Some of them had more of the dragon side and could breathe fire, and some have more of the human side. So some get the boobs, and some don’t.”

“Wait, don’t you lay eggs?”

Kreet nodded. “Yeah. What’s your point?”

“So the babies don’t actually 'come out’ I mean,” Brand pointed out.

“Okay then, they hatch. Does that make you feel better? Anyway, so that’s why some kobolds have boobs and some don’t.”

“Good an explanation as any I guess. Friar Guit has boobs and he’s a guy!”

“I know! Have you ever seen him in the shower? His boobs are bigger than his…” Kreet said, but then the dinner bell rang and they got up to go inside.

Meanwhile, Karl was hard at work on the laundry girl.


	10. Attack

In fact, it was almost a year and a half later before Karl’s wedding was announced. In the world that Kreet lived in, such young marriages were not unusual. Common wisdom was “If you’re old enough to ‘do it’ you’re old enough to be a parent”. The fact that the bride-to-be was gravid with child by then was the typical situation rather than the exception. The circumstances were obvious and Karl had been reprimanded by his Master for his indiscretion, but in fact he was quite in love with the woman and she seemed to be so of him as well. In the intervening time the old lady who lived outside the Monastery walls had died and thus the young couple was provided a place to reside on the Monastery property.

While the young lady, Vosa by name, had never been a friend of Kreet’s, she was civil enough and - with no other candidate available - Kreet was allowed to serve as her First while Brand was the First for Karl. It was a week away from the celebration that found all four together in Vosa’s room at the laundry.

"So you are staying on as Cleric Quint’s Assistent then?” Brand was asking Karl.

“Oh yes! The Master Cleric put in a good word for me with the Abbot. I know I can’t really be a true Cleric anymore. I’ve got a family to think about now,” Karl said, rubbing Vosa’s swelling belly. “But you know I’m damn good at Cantrips and Spells. Even the Master says so. I think they’ll groom me to take over for him one day!”

“I don’t doubt it,” Kreet said. “You’ll be teaching me and Brand soon!”

“Oh, be honest,” Vosa spoke up. “He already is, isn’t he?”

Kreet and Brand looked at each other. Kreet had to nod. “Yeah, he pretty much is. He’s really good at it.”

“I know! They wanted to bring a doctor in when it’s my time to deliver, but I told them my Karl can do it better anyway!” she said, holding Karl’s hand.

Karl looked alarmed at that, “Well, I could probably help, but you know I’ve never been present for a real delivery before!”

“We’ve done plenty of animals,” Brand spoke up. “Surely they’re not that much different.”

Karl looked at him seriously, “Maybe not, but it’s never been my _wife_ before!”

“Well I’m not worried,” Vosa said, “but since it will make Kay feel better, we’ll have a doctor anyway.”

Vosa’s look turned a bit ashamed, “besides, it’s not my first you know.”

Of course they all knew that. She had been pregnant before, but the child had died shortly after its birth. That _had_ created a stir in the Monastery, but she wouldn’t say who the father was to anyone. Most everyone suspected a village boy who had been seen around the Monastery anyway.

“So I guess it’s just you and me now,” Brand said to Kreet. “The last of the Young Clerics.”

“Well, if you don’t count those four new kids they brought in last year,” she reminded him.

Brand scoffed, “Those runts?! They’ll never amount to Clerics. They wouldn’t know a Cantrip from a Canticle!”

They all laughed at that, all except Vosa who, Kreet suspected, really didn’t.

Suddenly they heard noises outside. They all looked up, not recognizing the sound. Then the alarm bell began to ring and screams were heard in the distance.

“What the hell is that?” Brand shouted, standing up.

Vosa looked at Karl, who assured her it was alright, then turned back to Brand and Kreet. “The Monastery is under attack. Come on, we can help.”

The three left the room, but not before Vosa grabbed Karl’s hand. “Be careful Kay!” she said, sincere concern in her eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “I’m not stupid. And you’ll be fine too. But get to the sanctuary just in case.”

She nodded and then the three were out into the darkness. On the other side of the Monastery a fire was burning, but it appeared to be outside the wall. Kreet noticed the gate was shut up tight and monks were manning the normally empty guard towers with crossbows. It struck her that these normally peaceful men were nonetheless quite ready to weild any weapon available when threatened.

The three soon came upon Cleric Quint who had just finished talking with one of the Priors.

“Brand, come with me. Some bandits have breached the south wall. Kreet and Karl, you stay behind us. They’ve already been engaged by some of our best monks, but we are the only true Clerics here. Fortunately we had a warrior staying with the Abbot. I’m told he’s gearing up and will be with us shortly. Let’s get rid of these creatures before they can cause any serious damage!”

They ran towards the south wall, Brand and Cleric Quint outdistancing the lame Kurt and the small kobold quickly. Kreet saw the flash of metal and heard the yelling of both the monks and the bandits as she rounded a corner of the last building. Brand and her Master were in there somewhere, but she couldn’t make them out. However, her extended night vision did allow her to see one of the bandits running at a monk she didn’t recognize. The monk couldn’t possibly have seen him, since he was engaged with another bandit already in front of him. Kreet began a Cantrip, but Karl was faster. He knocked the man over with Sacred Flame. "Kreet, cover your eyes!“ he shouted, which she instantly obeyed, then he cast a strong Light spell.

She had her glasses on before she opened her eyes again. The Light spell had blinded most everyone there, but the Monks knew their land and the Bandits did not. Skulls were bashed in and bones broken. Kreet saw the Master then, taking on two terribly big men in fur armor with only his own stave, but he wielded it viciously. Beside him Brand was casting a Protection spell on the Master, then turned to help another monk who was giving way to a huge monstrous shape she’d never seen the like of before.

And then, like an angel in steel, a man strode in from behind them. In the full plate armor he wore, he could not move quickly, but he made an impression on everyone on the field that could not be denied. He headed straight for where Brand was barely keeping out of the way of the huge mace wielded by the beastly thing in front of him.

Thinking quickly, Kreet went to her knees and cast Bless on Brand, the Master and the new figure. Whether or not they noticed, she couldn’t tell, but it was one thing she could do for them anyway. It was the most powerful spell she knew that was not the forbidden spell, but she knew even that was only a level 1 spell. She began to feel useless.

Then the Knight, for Kreet could think of no other word for him, engaged in battle with the monster. It was no easy matter, even for him, to defeat the thing. But he wielded his shield expertly and the mace only glanced off it while that opened him up to strike at the heart of the thing. He scored a hit on one massive leg and she could see the blood spurting as Karl’s light began to fade, but it’s ire was up and it roared at the man who suddenly looked small as it reared up to it’s full height, it’s mace directly overhead as it prepared for a tremendous blow. Kreet could see no way the Knight, in his heavy armor, could avoid the blow. He might manage to survive, but it would be a chancy thing.

The other fighting seemed to stop as all eyes turned towards the two. Even the bandits backed off to see what would happen. Then Karl shouted again for Kreet to hide her eyes, which she did instantly, having practiced the move many times now. She felt the flash and heard the roar of his Guiding Bolt. When she opened her eyes again, the bandits were in full retreat back to the wall with the monks, Brand among them, giving chase. The thing lay motionless on the ground.

She looked at Karl, and he looked at her. "Are you okay Kreet?”

“Fine. You killed it!” she said with awe in her voice.

The Knight was striding their way. When he got within 10 feet, he removed his helmet. The long hair and moustaches that graced his face were almost exactly what Kreet had expected. He was every inch the Kight in Shining Armor.

“Damn you boy,” he shouted angrily. “I’d have sliced it’s legs off if you’d have given me another second!”

Karl shook his head. “What?! What are you on about? I saved your fucking life!”

The moustaches twitched. “Well, it was a little quicker than I thought. Maybe you’re right. Sorry lad, I don’t like it when my kill is taken from me. But damn that was one huge demon wasn’t it?”

Karl’s face relaxed. “A demon? Is that what that was?”

“Only thing I know of that would attack a Monastery head-on like that! They always attract retainers, but with it dead I’m sure they won’t be back. My name is Mekelson, boy. What’s your name?”

Karl shook the outstretched hand. “My name is Karl, Sir. My friends call me Kay. And this is Kreet.”

The head turned to face her, and it backed up a step. “But… she’s a kobold! Oh, that’s right. The abbot mentioned you. Kreet eh? You’re a lucky girl, Kreet. Most kobolds I meet don’t see me with my helmet off!”

He turned back to Karl, “Can she talk?”

Kreet’s eyes were burning. Something was wrong with her brain. She closed them and swallowed hard. Without looking at the man, she responded. “I talk. I am an Acolyte of Pelor, the Lord of Light.”

“She blessed you, you know,” Karl said speaking up for her.

“Oh, did she? Well, thank you for that, Kreet. But now I’d better get back to the Abbot. He’ll be waiting for me,” said the man and strode off.

Karl whispered to her, “You didn’t have to look away, Kreet. You’re an Acolyte. You deserve as much respect as any old warrior!”

“I didn’t look away out of shame, Kay,” the kobold said. When she looked up at him, he saw her eyes were literally glowing red in the darkness. “I was trying not to kill him.”


	11. Covet

Mekelson remained in the Monastery for another two days, and Kreet kept herself scarce during that time - going out of her cell only when she really needed to. She caught sight of him only once, and that from across the grounds when the man was talking to the Abbot and didn’t see her.

“Well, he’s gone now anyway,” Karl was saying as the foursome had gathered in her cell the day after Mekelson had left. “Why are you so bothered by him?”

Kreet took another drink of beer that the Acolytes were now allowed. “He’s an Adventurer. I hate them.”

Brand slapped her on the back and beer spurted out of her nostrils, “I got bad news for you, Gator. You’re going to be an Adventurer when you get out of this place!”

She glared at him, wiping her snout on his robe. “Thanks a lot!”

“But good timing you have to admit,” Karl snickered.

Kreet looked at him darkly and growled.

“Well, it’s true though isn’t it? At least, that’s what you’re expected to do, right?” Vosa asked, deflecting Kreet’s ire.

“Not if I can help it,” she said. “Oh, I’ll go around spreading the Light of Pelor and all that, but I don’t plan to go digging around in caves looking for gold!”

“That’s what happened to your family, right?” she asked.

Kreet’s first reaction was to respond sarcastically, but she saw Vosa’s face was sincere and she realized she was angry for no reason. Instead she nodded, “Pretty much. It’s been a long, long time ago so I don’t remember anything much. Mostly I just remember my brother shoving me into a cubby and then a lot of noise and screaming.”

“I heard kobolds were really good at building traps for Adventurers,” Karl added. “You think you could do that?”

Kreet sighed, “I’d build them AGAINST Adventureres. But no - I wish. I’ve seen some of the mechanisms they built. Very clever, but I don’t think I could build anything like those. My clan didn’t. I don’t think we were smart enough.”

“Well those sun-glasses are pretty clever I’d say! I expect you have it in you, Kreet. You’re just too nice to build anything so… violent.”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure. I can get pretty angry. I wanted to murder that Mekelson guy, and he’d not done anything to me.”

“He’s an asshole,” Brand said sympathetically.

Kreet changed the subject, “So Vosa, what did you think of the rehearsal?”

“Oh, I thought it went well, Kreet! I can’t wait!”

“Neither can I,” Karl agreed, snuggling with his fiancee.

“Well you will wait, loverboy!” Vosa said, giving him a kiss anyway. “You’re not to see me at all tomorrow until the wedding the next day!”

“I’ll manage somehow.” Karl said as he stood up and escorted Vosa to the door.

“Hey,” Brand said as he and Kreet stood up, “We still on for that bachelor party at the tavern tomorrow night?” Brand asked Karl. “You’ll be there, right?”

“Master says it’s okay, so yeah. I’ll be there,” Karl assured him.

“Don’t you dare make him do something he’ll regret, Brand. He’s got to live with me after, remember!” Vosa snarled warningly.

“Me? I’m the soul of respectability!” Brand smiled mockingly.

“Kreet, see that they don’t get in too much trouble for me, would you?”

Kreet nodded. Though she had never been close to the woman, she was beginning to warm to her as she got to know her better.

Kreet picked up the two chairs and stacked them back in the corner of her cell while Brand put the table away. “Brand, what do you do at a bachelor party anyway?” she asked.

“Oh, mostly male bonding things. Get drunk, ogle some women. It’s his last night of being single so it’s his last chance to live it up. I’ve got a couple of the tavern wenches already lined up.”

“And the Master is okay with that? They’re pretty strict on mingling you know.”

Brand sat beside her on the hard bed. “This is different. Karl’s doing the proper thing, getting married. As strict as they are, they can’t deny Nature too much either. As long as we don’t cause such a ruckus as to damage the Monastery’s reputation in town, they won’t mind. It’s not like Monks don’t occasionally sneak down there on their own anyway. I bet even the Abbot gets his wick dipped every once in a while.”

Kreet snorted at the euphemism. “I hope you don’t plan for him to do _that_!”

“Oh, naw… well, probably not anyway.”

“What about yourself? I’ve never seen you with a girl, Brand.”

Her friend shook his head. “You know you’re the only girl for me, Kreet.”

She slapped him with her tail, “I’m serious Brand. It’s one thing to promote celibacy here, but even if I’m not a human, I know it’s not a natural state. Are you just not interested in girls?”

“Oh, I’m interested enough. But Kreet, I _really_ want to become a Cleric. When I first came here, it was my father’s idea really, but I’ve come to want it as much as he ever did. And right now would be a really bad time for me to spend too much time or effort on pursuing girls. The worst thing that could happen to me would be if I was successful! No, it’s best that I just stay a virgin, at least till I get my white robes. What about you? No hunky kobold men in your life?”

Kreet snorted again, “Fat chance. I’ve never even seen another kobold. Besides, I think I’ve been around humans too long. I don’t know if I’d even like them. I’m like you, I guess. If I really wanted to find one, I’d leave here and go looking. There may be something wrong with me, Brand. From everything I’ve read on biology and everything we see in our Nature studies, I think I should feel some desire to find a mate, but I don’t!”

Brand looked at her. “Well, maybe you’re still too young.”

“Brand, we kobolds are supposed to mature even faster than you do. Dammit, look at these hips! If they get much bigger I’m going to need my door widened! I could have been a mother twice over by now.”

Brand put his arm over her shoulder. “Gator, you’ve not even been around any other kobolds. Maybe if you ever get to socialize with them, nature will reassert itself. You’re not living a normal kobold life here.”

“We covet what we see everyday,” Kreet said, quoting an obscure text.

“What’s that from?”

“I don’t even remember,” Kreet admitted. “Just some philosophy text probably.”

“It’s probably true though,” Brand said. “You can’t desire what you’ve never seen. Give it time, Kreet. Once we get out into the world, things will change.”

He kissed her on the snout then and stood up to leave. “You’ll see. Now don’t worry about it. Goodnight Gator. I’ll come by tomorrow night and take you to the tavern.”

He closed the door behind him and didn’t see the look in her eyes. It was the second kiss she’d ever received in her life, and this time it was from someone she knew… and liked.

She touched her snout where his lips had been. “He’s never kissed me before,” she thought. She got off the bed and knelt beside it and began to pray, hoping it would dispell the thoughts that rose unbidden in her mind - thoughts that were at once disturbing and decidedly unnatural. But try as she would, it seemed the more she tried to erase them, the more lodged they became. She would have to tell the Master.


	12. Councelor

The man that Kreet, Karl, and Brand knew as their Master was far more than a simple tutor to the three Acolytes. Because of the unique nature of the Clerical calling, he had to know as much about them as he could. He was their tutor, confidant and father figure - and they were his children. Since accepting the position of Master Cleric at the Monastery he had trained two other sets of Clerics. Some of his pupils were the pride of his life, while others were complete disappointments. He did not blame himself for those, nor took credit for the successes. That, he knew, lay with Pelor and the students themselves. The best he could do, was just to always do what he felt was right.

Yet he had no experience teaching female Acolytes, even less female kobold Acolytes. So when she came to him the following day, he tried his best to maintain his stoic demeanor at what she told him. It would do her no good, especially after overcoming her own embarrassment, to let her know just how helpless he felt in this situation. As she went on, describing her innermost feelings for Brand, he decided it would be best to simply imagine she was a boy who was having similar feelings for someone else. That idea gave him some solid ground to base his advice on, much has he knew this development could easily derail both Kreet and Brand’s future as Clerics of Pelor. He sincerely hoped he could help guide Kreet through this successfully.

Finally the kobold had finished her confession and was looking at him for help.

“Kreet, I am a Cleric of Pelor. That entails me always to seek the best path to guide others down. But we do not know what the future will hold, and I may well misguide you here. I am fallible and just a man, Kreet. But I am also Brand’s Master of course, so I must also gauge my responses to his benefit as well. You must know, first, that a kiss is an expression of caring. It may or may not be one of romantic love. The kiss I gave you years ago was just that - intended to expression my sincere caring for you. I am honored that you would still remember it, but no more was intended. Brand cares for you too, perhaps even more deeply, but that kiss does not itself indicate anything more.”

The kobold looked away from him, obviously dejected and probably embarrassed, but she nodded as well. “I knew that,” she said as if assuring herself.

“Kreet, I’d hoped nothing like this would ever happen. You’ve been raised in the company of us humans nearly all your life. I’m no expert in kobold, or any other races’ psychology, but in my experience, I believe all sentient beings long for a special bond with others, usually a single Other. That’s not even necessarily related to biology either. Two people can become friends without ever becoming physically intimate. I’m afraid that’s the most you can hope for with Brand, Kreet. You know I speak to all three of you privately on a regular basis. Brand is a very driven student. He’s not as quick as Karl with spells, and he’s not as quick to catch on to new concepts as you are. He knows that, and has something of an inferiority complex you may not be aware of.”

“Brand?! But he’s the best of all of us at…” Kreet began, but the Cleric interrupted.

“It doesn’t matter what he is good at, Kreet. He sees what he is _not_ the best at, and obsesses on it. He’s trying so, so hard. He loves both you and Karl deeply, but I don’t think he sees you in that special way.”

Kreet looked back up at him, tears welling in her eyes.

“I’m sorry Kreet, but my advice is this - keep these feelings to yourself. I know you want the best for Brand, as do I. I also want the best for you. Karl is the best student I’ve ever had in the magical realm, but we’ve lost him as a Cleric to love and nature. If you do not restrain yourself here, I will lose you too, I have no doubt, and probably Brand as well. Nature will do what it will do, and I know there’s only so much that willpower can control. Brand wants to become a Cleric so much. Let him have his dream, Kreet. You are both progressing so quickly now, it won’t be many more years.”

She nodded, wiping a tear from an eye. “Of course, Master,” she choked. “Life is… painful.”

The Cleric knelt to embrace her. “It is, Kreet. And yours is harder than anyone here knows, probably more than I even comprehend. But don’t despair of all hope. Time can change everything. I won’t propose to know how or in what manner your life will change, but I do promise you it will change. And for the better, no matter what you may feel now.”

Kreet stood up to go, and this time she planted her own kiss - as well as she could manage it - on the Cleric’s cheek. “I’m sorry I had to burden you with this, Master Cleric. I knew there wasn’t any good solution anyway, but it does feel better knowing someone understands.”

“I do understand, Kreet. I do not command you, you understand, but if you really care about him - as you do - you will let him complete his training, and yours as well. What happens then? Well… who knows what the future holds? Inter-species relationships aren’t unheard of. Why, all the half-elves running around can attest to that!”

She laughed, imagining what a half-kobold would look like, then rejecting the image. “Ew! Master, that’s a horrible thought.”

“Perhaps,” he said, walking her to the door. “But not all relationships must be procreative in nature either. I know it’s a radical thought, but you two _could_ just be friends for life you know.”

The little kobold looked at him like he’d just uttered an incantation. She nodded and a smile stole over her fact. “Friends for life. Yes, I could be that! Thank you Master!”

As the Master Cleric closed the door behind her, his face turned from a good-natured smile to a frown and he slumped perceptibly. Then he went to his prie-dieu and knelt.

“Good Pelor, please help me in this,” he prayed. “You know I’m lost here. Please help me to advise them correctly and as you would have it. I know you will guide them to your ultimate Good, but you know I’m lost in this matter!”

A voice in his head, which may have been the voice of Pelor or his own conscience gave him absolution. “As long as you do what you think is best, that is enough. That is all you can do.”


	13. The Wicked Serpent

It was just getting dark when Brand and Kreet knocked at Karl’s door. The husband-to-be opened the door and Kreet saw that all his earthly possessions were neatly stacked up in a crate in the corner.

“Ready to go?” Brand asked.

Karl smiled sheepishly, “No, but we might as well get this over with.”

“Well, it’s your last night of bachelor freedom,” Brand said as Karl got down his cloak and they proceeded out of the room. “You wouldn’t want to spend it alone in your room would you? Or meditating in the chapel?”

“Don’t you like ogling women?” Kreet asked innocently.

“Ogling? Gator, where’d you get that from? Brand has been smutting up your language again I see!”

“Oh, like you don’t,” Brand laughed.

“Hey, just because I do, doesn’t mean I have to admit it! Yeah Kreet, no doubt I do. But after tonight I’m supposed to only ogle Vosa!”

“Are you sure it’s alright for me to come along? I’ve never been in a tavern before.”

Both Brand and Karl looked at their little friend. “Never?” asked Karl.

She shook her head.

“Well then, it’s high time you did!” Brand said. “We’ll look out for you. True sometimes the drunks can get rowdy, but the Wicked Serpent is a pretty decent place. And you’re fairly well known around town, even if you don’t go there often. Not many places can claim they have a tame kobold living nearby.”

She glared at Brand. “I’m not tame,” she asserted. “And nobody ‘has’ me.”

“Sorry Gator. I didn’t mean it like that. But you are a minor celebrity around here. You’ll be fine.”

“Besides,” Karl went on, “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Kreet. The three of us together for one last adventure before I retire.”

“Karl,” Kreet groaned, “You’re not even 20 years old yet. I don’t think you’re ready for retirement.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

They arrived at the tavern in town near the Monastery and Brand opened the door wide. The warm firelight and sounds of voices inside drew Kreet in behind Karl. The three walked through the place, eliciting little notice. Certainly some heads turned and conversations changed at the arrival of the kobold, but they soon returned to their business when nothing further happened.

Brand and Karl sat on seats at the bar with Kreet between them. While she stood all of four feet tall by this time, she still could barely see over the counter. Brand indicated the bar top and suggested she sit atop it instead, which she happily agreed to. Once there she could see everything. The frown from the bartender was quickly taken care of when Brand set some coins on the bar beside Kreet and ordered three rounds of ale.

Kreet scanned the scene. She was actually surprised and delighted to find that the place, rather than being filled with weapons-and-armor clad adventureres, was peopled more by the local farmers and merchants. Four serving wenches were busy delivering drinks and receiving rather bawdy attention from the male patrons as well as the occasional slap on the rump or worse. One of them came over to Brand and greeted all three of them warmly. 

“Brand! I see you brought your friends too! So this is the young man who is getting roped?”

“Yup! Red, this is Karl, Acolyte of Pelor and soon-to-be husband. I’m hoping you and the girls can show him a good time tonight. Remind him of what a foolish thing he’s doing tomorrow!”

“Oh, I think we can manage that,” the woman named 'Red’ smiled warmly, taking Karl’s hand. “I think we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Karl nodded, “I used to come in here sometimes,” he admitted. “Before I met my fiance.”

“To get drunk and look at us I wager,” Red laughed, not letting go of his hand.

Karl nodded and she pulled his hand underneath her loose-fitting blouse, “Well, you’ll do more than look tonight young stud!”

Karl’s face turned bright red as she fake-moaned, then released his hand laughing.

“But it will have to be later, we’ve got a full crowd here right now. They’ll start to thin out in an hour or so. Then we can open up the side room for you. Sound good?”

Brand nodded happily while Karl just stared at his hand.

“Is that ogling?” Kreet asked as she took her first drink of ale.

“That,” Brand said, downing a big gulp of his own ale, “is called 'groping’ I believe!”

“But,” protested Karl, “is it 'groping’ if she _makes_ me?”

“I didn’t see a lot of resistance, Karl. And based on the size of that bump in your robe, I’d say the end result is about the same!”

Kreet couldn’t help but look. “Oh! Now I get it! It’s a mating ritual, right? He touches her breasts and that makes it….”

“Gator!” Karl hissed. “Shut up!”

“Oh… Sorry,” she said. “This is all new to me you know. There’s not many books in the library about this.”

“Actually, Kreet,” Karl said. “There are. But they’re locked away from the Acolytes.”

“Really?” Brand said in between drinks. “I never heard of that!”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen them. I was in charge of the library last year remember. Pretty graphic stuff!”

Kreet was puzzled, “I don’t know why they’d hide them from us at this point. For heaven’s sake Brand, you’ve already gotten Vosa pregnant! What more could there be that you haven’t already figured out?”

“Probably some idea about keeping us away from that sort of thing. Doesn’t work though, obviously,” said Brand.

“And you’d be surprised at how much more there is!” Karl went on, getting into his scholarly mode again and seeming to have forgotten all about his hand now. They have books on specific races and customs! Even one on the mating rituals of Orcs if I understood the title correctly.“

"Anything on Kobolds?” Brand asked, putting his arm around Kreet.

Karl shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen,” he said, actually having to look up to the kobold, given her high perch, “Sorry Gator. I did look for one too.”

Kreet sighed and downed the remainder of her tankard in an impressive display given her diminutive size. “Oh, nevermind Gimp,” she said when she came up for air, “I’ll learn plenty of _your_ rituals eventually I expect.”

A few minutes later another round of ale was delivered and Kreet began to feel light-headed.

“…and they really don’t mind?” Karl was asking Brand about the tavern girls.

“Those that don’t, don’t. Those that do mind, don’t do it. It’s that simple Karl. It’s not like they don’t get paid well. But no, they’re not forced to.”

“Wouldn’t that make them…” Kreet asked.

“Well, yeah, sort of I guess. But don’t expect anything Karl. The bartender made it clear, the girls will do what they want and nothing more. Right?”

“Hey! I’m pretty happy with just that grope!” Karl laughed. “Besides, if I drink much more I don’t think it will really matter much!”

“What about you, Kreet? Do you want to see some women up-close and personal? Just for research purposes of course.”

Kreet looked at Brand, her eyes a little unfocused. “I’d rather look at some men. A lot more interesting design-wise!”

“Pffft,” Karl scoffed. “A stick and some balls. Simple. But women! Now there’s COMPLEXITY! Why, they have a place down there thats…”

“Karl!” Kreet interrupted him. “You can turn off the instructor-talk now. Besides, I kinda know most everything I need to about women already.”

“She’s got a point Karl. You do tend to lapse into teacher mode.”

“What can I say? Since spending time with Vosa I’ve become something of an expert in the subject!” Karl laughed.

“Well sure, you’ve got experience with ONE, but I’m sure Gator can attest that no two are exactly alike,” Brand responded.

“I’m sure that’s true,” Kreet agreed. “Though I’m obviously a lot different than most.”

“Snowflakes. You’re all like snowflakes - every one different,” Karl observed, another tankard hitting empty.

“Well, you are too, right? I mean, guys all like things a little differently too?” Kreet said, starting to slur her words a little.

Karl and Brand looked at each other and started laughing.

“Oh, I’m sure some do, Gator, but as a rule we all pretty much like the same thing,” Karl assured her.

The woman known as Red came back up to them then and took Karl by the hand. Another came up to Brand and Kreet. “Come on! Red says you’re having a batchelor party! I love those!”

“Me too?” Kreet asked, unsure of what she should do in this situation.

“Oh sure! Come on along little kobold! Don’t worry, we’re just gonna have fun. No sex involved, I promise!”

“Awwww,” Brand cried, but picked Kreet up off the bar and they followed the busty wench, a little woozily, into a side room where Red already had Karl’s robe off from the waist up and was massaging his back while sitting on him.

By the end of the night Kreet had indeed learned a lot more about humans and their habits. She also learned that too much ale makes you vomit and pee a lot, not necessariliy in that order. As they staggered back to the Monastery, all three were singing a bawdy tune that Red had taught them.

“But now I’m all pent-up,” Karl complained after the last line.

“I know what you mean!” Brand agreed. “But save that for your honeymoon.”

Karl nodded. “Yeah. What about you? You and Gator gonna…” Karl said, making an obscene gesture.

Kreet laughed in her half-coughing way, “Are you kidding? Now I’ve seen you both erect! You’d split me in half! No, Brand’s going to have to handle it on his own.”

“Which he probably will! Did you see those boobs Brand?”

“On Red? Jeeze, yeah!”

Kreet suddenly was depressed in the rapid mood swings that alchohol often produced. “I don’t have any boobs,” she said forlornly.

“Aww, Gator, boobs aren’t everything,” Brand said, patting her on the shoulder.

“They are to you guys,” she said, practically crying now.

Even in his drunken state, Karl tried to revert to his scholarly tone, “Mammary glands are the most obvious external signal of a human female’s sexual maturity, Gator. It’s natural that they would interest us you know.”

“And kobolds get thunder-thighs. I suppose in my native culture these things would be hot stuff,” Kreet said gloomily, wiggling her butt.

“Yeah, probably so,” Karl agreed.

The three arrived at Karl’s room where Brand and Kreet said goodnight to the husband-and-father-to-be.

“Thanks again Brand,” Karl managed to say before collapsing onto his cot. “That was a hell of a bachelor party!”

“It was! Goodnight Karl. We’ll see you at the wedding.”

Karl groaned as they shut the door behind them and Brand and Kreet proceeded to her room. She became aware of a growing tension between the two, though she didn’t say anything. They stopped at her door.

“Goodnight Kreet,” Brand said, kneeling down to give her a hug.

“Brand… if you want to come in for a little bit…”

Brand looked at her directly. The look may have lasted a second or an hour. Kreet couldn’t tell. She only saw his eyes. They looked… deep.

“Kreet…” he began but she interrupted him.

“I, want you to Brand…”

But he shook his head and her world fell in on itself. She had revealed too much. She’d exposed her feelings for him. She would never have done it had she been sober or the night been earlier. Things would never be the same between them again, she knew. Why did she have to say that?

“I know you do, Kreet,” he said, but her mind was already leaping ahead and seeing the darkness in front of her.

“Kreet, I do love you, you know. In a way,” he kept talking, but she heard nothing. She wished he would just go away and let her die in self-pity.

“It’s not because you’re a kobold either, Kreet. But… this can’t happen to me now. It would be such a mistake…” he said, but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. In Kreet’s ears she heard only the pulsing white-noise of the ocean or her heartbeat as her eyes turned purple and her vision wavered.

Finally he released her and she entered her room, stunned, closing the door behind her. She glanced over to where a short dagger lay in a drawer and considered it for a second. Then she looked at her claws. She didn’t want to kill herself really. But she did want to hurt herself for the stupid thing she had just done. She retracted her claws so as not to draw blood, and began beating herself on her flat, flat chest. Hard.


	14. Letting the Days Go By

The wedding of Karl and Vosa went without a problem, and if there was a coldness between Vosa’s First and Karl’s First, it wasn’t noticed by anyone but themselves. As planned, Karl and his wife moved into the shack outside the Monastery and made a home there. Karl was promoted to First Level Cleric some months later and began teaching the other Acolytes. Though not a True Cleric, in that he didn’t venture forth into the world, nonetheless his mastery of the magical aspects could not be ignored and he was a good teacher.

For her part, Kreet threw herself into her studies more than ever, but her physical training sessions with Brand did not resume. This obviously did not escape the notice of her Master, but since neither her nor Brand seemed to want to discuss the matter, he did not persue it.

More than a year passed and Karl’s new baby boy kept him at home when he wasn’t teaching, so Kreet saw little of him. Mostly she saw the inside of her room which she kept dark these days. Her unique vision allowed her visibility in total darkness, and she liked it dark. She also began studying the kobold language. She had been speaking the human tongue so long, she realized she had all but forgotten her own. The books Ka'Plo had written along with his own books on the subject and her memory helped as well.

“Kreet, could you come into my room for a few minutes,” the Cleric Quint said to her one day after her class.

Kreet nodded, responding in Kobold and following him into his private chamber.

“Kreet, I don’t know what’s been happening with you. You’ve become reclusive and I’m worried about you. Is there something you want to talk about?”

“Master, I am preparing for my Apostolate. I wish to bring the light of Pelor to my own kind. I must remember what it is to be a kobold in order to do that.”

“That is good. I feel you are ready for that. Brand as well. We wait only for the spring to arrive - the traditional season to inaugurate new Clerics. Karl was, of course, a special case.”

Kreet nodded.

“Are you considering travelling with Brand?”

Kreet’s eyes turned dark and she muttered something. “I will not,” she said flatly.

The Cleric let some time pass before responding, “You are both fine people, Kreet. And traveling with a fellow Cleric is an honorable and traditional way to begin the rest of your life as an Apostle of Pelor. Will you not consider it?”

Kreet started to reply immediately, then hesitated. Her training asserted itself. Do not be too hasty in decisions, she told herself.

“I… will consider it.”

And so she did. She considered her feelings for the boy - no, she had to admit, he was no boy any longer. Brand was a man. She still felt something burn within her when she saw him, but the time they had spent apart had helped her to heal and focus on other things. She was looking forward to her future life actually, which was something she could not have said a year before.

But, actually travelling with him… It would probably open old wounds that had only barely begun to heal. Wounds that were not his fault, but nonetheless hurt her deeply. She thought about that too. Embarassment, really. Embarassment is such a self-centered feeling. It assumes the whole world is looking at you and laughing at you, when the world might have just glanced your way once, chuckled, and moved on. But embarassment insists they are still looking, remembering, judging and finding you wanting.

A knock came at her door. She knew it was Brand immediately. She opened the door and ushered him to a chair, then closed the door bringing on utter darkness.

“I can’t see anything you know, Kreet,” he said.

“I know. I like it this way. What do you want, Brand?”

“I just was talking to the Master,” he began.

“About the Apostalate. And travelling together?” Kreet said, laying back down on her bed and watching the blind man try to face her in the darkness.

“Yes, about that. Kreet, I know what’s been going on between us. I wish I could fix things.”

“You know I plan to go underground, right? I’m going to try and find my own kind there,” she said, practically ignoring him.

“I know. But I could come too. You’ll need some help. Kreet, they might kill you on sight. Inter-kobold wars aren’t unheard of you know.”

“Read up on your Kobold have you?”

“Yes Kreet. I know what you’re doing - what you’re planning for. I have been studying too.”

Kreet switched to the kobold language, “Have you? What am I saying then?”

Brand responded, after a short pause while he was obviously working out the words, in passable kobold, “I have. You are asking me what you are saying.”

Kreet smiled. “You have been studying!”

“Kreet, about that night…”

Suddenly two red orbs flashed and Brand could see a little of Kreet’s face.

“Brand, shut up. To say that I don’t want to talk about it would be a gross underestimate. Forget about that night. I was stupid, okay?”

“Jeeze, lighten up Kreet! You’re glowing red! Okay, consider it forgottten.”

“It’s not forgotten, Brand. I just don’t want to talk about it. But as for us travelling together. Do you really want to?”

“I really do, Kreet. I want to begin my Apostalate with you.”

The fury abated and her eyes stopped glowing while she considered this.

Finally she crossed to the door silently, testing her ability to do so and she didn’t miss the fact that Brand did not turn to follow her. She opened the door and the light streamed in from outside.

“I’ll consider it, Brand. If you really want to come with me… REALLY want to… keep studying my language. I’ll talk to you again about it in a few days.”

Brand jumped a bit at her voice coming suddenly from behind him as the door opened and he saw her standing there.

“Jeeze Kreet, you scared me!”

The little kobold walked over to him and touched his hand. “Brand… I’m not a human. I feel like I’m only now beginning to understand what that means. For all my life I’ve been trying to be human. That night… I failed. I failed miserably and it took me a long time to realize why. I’m not a human, and I need to get better at being a kobold. If I frighten you while doing that, I apologize. But I am what I am, and I need to stop trying to be anything else.”

Brand nodded and stepped out into the light of the hallway. Kreet closed the door and lay back on her bed, looking at the door in the black light of her cell. She felt so much less certain than how she sounded. What she said was all true, but she also knew she could never be totally kobold either. She may have the shape, but her mind was still far too human. And his hand had been so goddamn warm.

A few days later Kreet invited Brand back to her room. She was supposed to just talk about their future Apostalate together. But in the darkness, they talked for hours. Though she thought she had hardened herself in the months since that night after the party, Kreet realized she had only been fooling herself. Her feelings hadn’t changed - they’d only been covered.

Then, somehow, they were no longer talking and the only light in the room came from Kreet’s glowing blue eyes. This time the kiss meant a lot more, and she felt his arms wrap around her like her own arms wrapped around him. Warmth flooded her heart and the light went out as she closed her eyes and forgot about the world, for just a moment.

Until the door opened.


	15. Excommunicated

Kreet found herself outside of the Monastery, stripped of her clerical robe, title, and alone. As she walked past the house where Karl and Vosa lived, she thought for a moment that she saw Vosa looking out at her before the window shade was drawn. On the walls of the Monastery beside the gate, a lone monk looked down on her. He waved his hand to her and she returned it. That was nice of him, she thought. She couldn’t hate those within. At least, not all of them. Her years of training had left her with a profound respect for the teachings of Pelor and the Way of Light. Her benefactors had bent every rule they could to accommodate her, but she had broken even those rules in the end. Still, regardless of the circumstances of her expulsion, she held her head high. No matter what they might say, she was a Cleric of Pelor now. They couldn’t take that away as much as they might wish it. Officially she was excommunicated from the Sect they belonged to, but she needed no official sanction from them. Her mandate was from Pelor.

She had not been allowed to see Brand though, and that hurt. Vosa’s graphic depiction of the scene when she’d walked in on them unannounced had been all that was needed. Later, in private, the Master Cleric had explained to her of the factions, both within and outside the Monastery, that had aligned against her. They were just waiting for something like this to happen. It was an excuse, really, he explained. They were never going to allow a female kobold to become a recognized Cleric, regardless of the Abbot or Master Quint’s wishes. Behind closed doors when he was allowed to speak freely, he gave her his blessing and assured her that, regardless of this travesty, she was a full Cleric of Pelor. The God of Light didn’t care, and her Master’s reassurance meant all the difference to her.

Along with that assurance, she had left with a little gold, a new nondescript robe, and some advice. Even Karl hadn’t spoken to her when her banishment was announced. He would have been torn between their friendship and his new wife and mother to his child, of course, and that was a battle she couldn’t hope to win.

So she walked towards the town, not knowing where her future lay. She took solace that they couldn’t take away her knowledge. A Cleric of Pelor she remained, if without affiliation. They could keep their robe and their badge. She had learned all she needed. What she didn’t have were any prospects. Evening was already falling, and she found it hard to believe that only last night, for the briefest of moments, she had been in the arms of her only love. Already it felt like years had passed.

She walked down the path and saw the lights of the town beyond begin to flicker to life, and she contemplated what had happened. In the darkness, perhaps, he had been able to overlook her reptilian body, and she had been able to imagine they could have a future together. It was beyond foolish. It was ludicrous. It was obscene. It was perverse. But for a few minutes it had almost felt possible. Until the door opened.

She closed her eyes and walked into the town. A new chapter in her life was about to begin. Perhaps the Master was right. She had only rarely visited the town, but she knew it well enough. Tonight it would have to be the tavern. “The Wicked Serpent”. Oddly appropriate, she thought. She opened the door.

Within the boisterous laughter quieted a little at her entrance, but soon picked up again when Red saw her and sat with her at a table.

“You’re Kreet, right? What is it, Kreet? What are you doing here alone at this time of night?”

“I’ve been excommunicated, Red.”

“Excommunicated? Really?! But you’re their star Acolyte! A kobold Cleric!”

“Not anymore.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Kreet looked into the woman’s eyes. This woman was a complete stranger, yet she wanted to help. Pelor was here, she was certain.

“Red, you don’t even know me. But… If you mean it… I think I need to talk to someone.”

“Girl, that’s what we do here. We’re not just drink deliverymen and eye-candy, no matter what some might think.”

Red took her by the hand, ordered two strong drinks from the bartender, and informed him that she would be taking the rest of the night off. Then she led Kreet into a small sleeping room on the second floor.

“Here, take a shot of this Kreet. Then tell me all about it.”

The drink went down hot. The little kobold closed her eyes and felt it do it’s work as a tear fell onto her lap. She didn’t like that she was reduced to pouring out her heart to a stranger, but now everyone in the world was a stranger. She might as well get used to it. She started her tale, beginning with the bachelor party and ending with the lurid scene from last night and the hastily convened tribunal.

Red sat listening as if she were a trained Counselor. Kreet thought of her own Master briefly, but found herself too grief-stricken to care. The alcohol lubricated her tongue and she let it all spill out, telling the woman things she wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone _except_ a complete stranger. When she’d finally finished, Red sat beside her on the bed with her arm around the sad kobold.

“I’m sorry I don’t have any words that will make it better, Kreet. What’s done is done.”

“What’s done is done,” Kreet repeated fatalistically. “And now I’m lost.”

“You could stay here, girl. If you’d like to.”

Kreet looked up at her. “Stay here? I don’t think the bartender would approve of that,” she laughed through her tears.

“The bartender? Pah. What’s he got to do with it? I don’t pay him enough to make decisions around here!”

“You? Pay him?”

“Look girl,” the owner of the Wicked Serpent said, calling her ‘girl’ for the third time, Kreet noticed. “I don’t publicize it, but this is my joint. Well, mine and Cherry’s. You can stay here as long as you like. But if you do, I’ll have one request.”

Kreet sniffled again, but her mood was improving. “What’s that Red?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Tonight, you stay here with me. Life just gave you one hell of a kick in the ass, girl. Cry it all out if you need to, or drink it out. Tomorrow, when you’ve gotten yourself back together, we’ll talk business. You don’t have to stay here if you change your mind. Tonight there’s no strings attached. If you do stay though, you’re going to have to work, and it’s not all pleasant. But it’s a living. For tonight, just consider it as an option.”

“Oh thank you Red,” Kreet cried, lapsing back into tears again and hugging the woman tight in appreciation. Red held Kreet through the night, as promised and against her own expectation, Kreet actually managed to fall asleep in the arms of this stranger.

The next day Red was still sleeping beside her when Kreet awoke. She looked at the sleeping woman. The morning light crept in through the window and Kreet noticed the lines around the woman’s eyes for the first time. She had seemed much younger last night. The swell of her bosom opened a fresh ache in Kreet for what she couldn’t have, but that was just momentary. She nestled back into this stranger’s arms and dozed off again. A stranger she may be, but she was a stranger who took her in and gave her hope. No matter what the cost, that meant something.

Later when Red awoke, she had breakfast sent up and they ate together.

“So, have you thought about my proposition?”

Kreet nodded. “But, you know… no matter what rumors you might hear from the Monastery, I can’t… you know. Be with men like that.”

“Kreet, let me tell you a little secret. We don’t do that here. At all. _EVER_. Sure some of the customers think we do, but no. Absolutely not. So that won’t be a problem. You will get the occasional pinch or grope, I’ll not sugar-coat that. But anything beyond that and we’ll take care of the problem. The work here isn’t just getting your ass slapped though. Hell, that’s the fun part! No, every evening is a sort of performance, Kreet. It’s a dance and a tightrope walk. You have to act like your dearest desire is to spend more time with 'Ian the Sweaty Farmer’, yet always find a reason you can’t. You have to deliver the drinks but always be on guard for the guy who gets angry-drunk and cut him off before he gets that far. It’s not as easy as you might think. Most of our guests are regulars though. You’ll get to know them, and they’re really mostly decent folk. We’re just where they go when they want to spend some time away from their normal life. Do you understand?”

Kreet nodded, “I understand. It’s a game.”

“Yes, a game. They bring us money, we get them drunk and let them dream of a life they can never have. That’s pretty much the deal.”

“But… well, obviously, I’m a kobold. I don’t even have… you know. I’m not sure anyone’s really going to care.”

Red laughed, “Girl, you don’t know men. You’ll be popular enough, I promise! You’re exotic, and you’re sweet. That’ll trump boobs… with most of them anyway.”

Kreet considered the offer. Actually she had been considering it seriously. It carried a sort of revenge too, she had to admit. The Monastery had rejected her because they deemed her a bestial harlot? Well, she could work here and prove them exactly right. Having an ex-Acolyte working as a tavern wench right next door. That would surely sting. She couldn’t deny it had a certain appeal.

“I accept, Red. And thank you for everything. I will begin my Apostlate here! Despite everything, I am still a Cleric of Pelor - sanctioned by the Monastery or not. This can also be training of a sort that they’d never teach me at the Monastery. This will be my training in real life. And who knows? Maybe I can convert a few souls while I’m here!”

“That’s the spirit, though good luck with the conversions, Kreet. But you will learn a lot. Alright then, first we need a nickname for you. Obviously Red isn’t my name, it’s Kyleen if you want to know, but we all go by nicknames here. There’s me and Cherry and Ashley and Wynda, and the Bartender is Nick. There’s some others you may meet as well eventually. I’ll introduce you to everybody later. Got any ideas for a name?”

“Gator. Call me Gator.”

Red laughed. “Gator it is!”

And with that, Kreet began her new life as Gator the Tavern Wench. Of course word got around before the end of the day that the kobold from the monastery was now working at the Wicked Serpent, and rumors of the reason for her expulsion grew and expanded. By the end of the week the tavern had been unofficially renamed The Wicked Kobold, and despite the ever-more-lurid tales of her fall from grace at the Monastery, the tavern became more popular than ever as people came to see the Talking Kobold Wench.

Kreet soon found that, rather than being ostracized as an exile from the Monastery, she was instead viewed as a sort of heroine. She said nothing against the Monastery, but the common belief by the end of the week was that those perverted monks had forced her into unnatural sexual congress and that she had escaped their clutches. It seemed the townspeople always had their suspicions of what went on at the Monastery, and her expulsion played right into that.

“That’s probably why we don’t see any Monks in here anymore,” Red said around the lunch table as the girls were cleaning up from the previous night a few weeks later. Indeed, since she arrived, Kreet had met no one from the Monastery at all. She had secretly hoped Brand or Karl at least might drop in, but neither ever did.

“What really happened, Gator? Did they really make you take showers with them?” asked the elder of the other three, and Red’s partner - the blonde woman named Cherry.

“You really want to know? They weren’t anything like that really. Mostly they are kind and gentle men - but they only had the one shower room, and you know I’m not exactly a turn-on to men, so yeah, I shared the showers with them. But nothing even remotely happened like that.”

“Well, Kevin from the bakery seems to think you’re hot stuff!” Ashley said.

Kreet found herself laughing, something that only a week before she wouldn’t have thought possible. “Kevin thinks Nick is hot stuff.”

“HEY!” the burly bartender called from where he was cleaning the mugs behind the bar, “Don’t get me involved!”


	16. Wench

Kreet settled into her new life at the Wicked Serpent quickly enough. It didn’t take her too long to learn most of the drinks and food on the menu, and she had fashioned three identical and quite interesting uniforms for herself as well, using the other girls’ outfits as a model. If her chest didn’t exactly fill out the blouse that topped the bodice, it at least gave the impression of more underneath than was really there. Cherry and the other girls were delighted with it, and Red even gave her approval. It didn’t take long to figure out the relationship between Cherry and Red, but they took ribbing from the younger girls well and Kreet began to feel comfortable with her new family.

As for the customers, she was the darling of the tavern. It had taken her some time to get used to them. There was always someone who got a little too touchy-feely as the night wore on, but they soon learned her tail made a pretty stinging whip and she wasn’t afraid to use it. She also was surprised to learn that Nick only rarely had to come out from behind the bar to wield his muscle. Both Red and Cherry were quite capable of handling all but the most aggressive drunks. Of course there were occasional fights that broke out, and Kreet quickly learned why the furniture, mugs and cups were built so sturdy. It was the girls’ belief that when fights broke out among the patrons, as long as the steel stayed sheathed it was just as well to let it play out inside. That took some getting used to for Kreet.

“You have to understand,” Cherry was saying after they’d closed the tavern and were sweeping up the mess, “that a lot of the fight is just the way they let out their aggression. I’d much rather they do that here, where we can intervene if it gets too serious, than outside where they’re likely to pull out weapons.”

“And,” Ashley put in, “there’s usually some relative or neighbor here to keep things under control anyway.”

“But… that one guy lost a tooth!,” Kreet said while mopping the floor. She seemed to get most of the floor-work, she noticed. Cherry had said it was because she was the closest. She liked Cherry.

“Ah, it happens,” Ashly said, pounding a mug back into shape with a small hammer. They’ve got more.“

Wynda spoke up from the lavatory, "Ty doesn’t have that many more! Goddammit Cherry, why don’t we just install a giant funnel in here! I swear there’s more piss outside the hole than in it!”

“Hey, I already told you the best solution,” Kreet pointed out. “And it would work too! Just install some holes in the door with tubes to direct it to the cesspool! Then they can just stick their things in, get the job done, and no mess. Clean, practical… what’s the problem with that?”

Wynda stepped out of the lavatory carrying a bucket to the door. “Sounds like a good idea to me!”

“Never work,” Nick said. “Guys don’t like to whip them out in public.”

“BULLSHIT!” Cherry scoffed. “I see more dicks every night than that lavatory does!”

“Well… they don’t like other guys to see ‘em I guess.”

“Why not?” Kreet asked.

The three girls looked at each other and began laughing.

Red managed to recover first. “They all are convinced they have the smallest one in the room!”

“Oh! I see.”

The door reopened and Wynda came back in, her bucket full of fresh water and returned to her labors in the lavatory.

“A funnel, I say,” she repeated. “Big… _BIG_ funnel. Oh fuck! I swear to Pelor somebody hit the ceiling! Oh, sorry Gator.”

Kreet laughed, “Pelor isn’t offended by anything like that.”

Cherry and Red went to the lavatory and looked up.

“Impressive!” Cherry said.

“A bladder of heroic proportions!” Wynda laughed, but Red stood on the bench and reached up to touch the ceiling, then sniffed her finger.

“Not piss. Water. Nick, the roof’s got a leak.”

“Oh crap. Okay, I’ll get it in the morning,” Nick called.

“No, you’ll get it now. Take Gator. She can hold the lamp. If you wait till morning it’s only going to get worse and the floor will be flooded.”

“As if it’s not already flooded with piss,” Wynda complained.

Nick sighed and motioned for Kreet to follow. They went in the back room, got some tools, and went up to patch the roof.

“So, Gator. What do you think? Is life at the tavern everything you expected?”

Kreet held the lamp while the bartender began pounding nails. “Nothing like what I expected actually. But the girls are nice.”

Nick nodded, not looking up from his work. “They are.”

“You like working here?”

“Sure! Where else can I hang out all night, beat up drunks, look at beautiful women and get paid for it? What’s not to like?”

“I suppose when you put it that way, you’ve got a point.”

Nick packed up his tools and started down the ladder. “The way I figure it, Gator, all jobs are shit. But they’ve all got their plus sides too. There’s a hell of a lot worse out there than pouring drinks and rousting drunks.”

“There is,” Kreet agreed as she followed him down the ladder.

“Um… Gator,” he said as she hopped off onto the ground.

“Hmm?”

“There’s one thing, about your uniform…”

“I know, I know. Jeeze, sorry to flash you. I’m still working on how to get the tail hole to work with a skirt. It’s not easy! Robes are so much simpler.”

“Okay, but till then I suggest no more dancing on the table for you. No wonder those guys were all crowded around!”

Kreet wasn’t able to blush, but her eyes did glow a bit pink as they went back inside. "Oh yeah. I forgot about that.“


	17. Adoption

In the end, Kreet did manage to improvise a modified version of her plan for the lavatory, and all agreed it was ingenious. Just inside the door she had Nick build a little trough of sorts, which sloped down to a tube made of sheep’s bladder, which in turn ran into the cesspool below. She even suggested a curved back edge that would direct the flow away from the customer and prevent splash-back. Though they did share duties, Wynda in particular really liked the new setup.

“Well then, if you’re so smart, Gator, maybe you can help figure out how Nick can clean the mugs quicker?” Red suggested.

“I’ll think about it!” Kreet shouted back over the din of the customers surrounding her table and clapping as she danced again. They seemed to really enjoy watching her dance, even after she’d resolved her tail fit issue. She reflected momentarily as she spun around one more time that the Master Cleric was right. Time and life do move on, and in ways you can’t foresee. As the conclusion of her dance, she flung herself backwards, counting on the patrons to catch her - which they did of course. If a few hands strayed a bit longer before setting her back on her feet, that was to be expected.

“ _Again!_ ” a they shouted, but she waived them off.

“Enough for now boys, give a girl a break will ya? Your wives must be exhausted!”

She left the laughter behind her as she went into the back room for a break.

“You’ve gotten pretty good handling them, Gator,” Ashley said.

“Thanks!”

“That crack about their wives - very good. Builds their ego while reminding them that they have wives. Nice,” she continued, but Kreet didn’t miss the sarcastic tone. She was surprised to hear that. She’d always gotten along well with them all, Ashley as much as the others. She sat beside the girl.

“What’s your problem? Somebody pinch your tit?” she said. ‘Giving as good as you got.’ Cherry called it. In this group, if someone makes fun of you or insults you, you give it back. An odd form of camaraderie, but it worked.

Ashley sat back, legs splayed in what Cherry would have called a “most unladylike manner”. Kreet had learned posture meant a lot more than she’d ever realized here. While the girls were supposed to be somewhat 'slutty’, there were rules even of posture that couldn’t be broken out there. So naturally, when on break and out of sight of the customers, that was the first thing to go.

“Sorry Gator,” Ashley apologized, scratching her armpit.

Kreet looked at the girl. She noticed her eyes were red. “What is it Ash? Do you want to talk about it?”

Ashley looked at her. “What would you know about anything. You’re a lizard! You don’t even get monthly blood.”

Kreet nodded. “That’s so. But I can still listen.”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

“Oh?! A blessing from Pelor! Congratulations! But why the crying?”

“Because the lout that stuck it in me doesn’t want it. Or me.”

Kreet looked at her sideways. “Doesn’t want it? What on earth do you mean? He doesn’t want his own _child_?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t want me anyway. It’s kind of a package deal. I was stupid. Now I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t work here after I have a baby. Jeeze Gator, what am I going to do?”

Kreet sat and thought. This was new. She’d never contemplated that people might not _want_ to have a child! Deep down she knew it was something she had always dreamed of but could never have. She couldn’t imagine how anyone would _not_ want one.

“Does he know?”

“Hell, _I_ don’t even know. But it’s been a long time, Gator. Stupid, I know.”

“Not so stupid, Ashley. A mistake maybe, but we all make them from time to time.”

“Not like this. This sort of mistake will ruin my life.”

Kreet took the girl’s hands in hers. “Ashley, what will be will be. What you see now as a curse may well become a blessing though. Think about what it would be to have a child. A little life that looks up to you as their world. Your life will change if this baby is born, of that there is no doubt. Life does that. It changes. But Ashley, a _BABY_! Ashley, that’s no curse. That is a blessing from Pelor.”

“Easy for you to say,” Ashley spat out, “You’re not pregnant. I heard there’s an alchemist over in Ridley that can get rid of it.”

Kreet stared at her. “Get rid of it?”

Ashley choked up and couldn’t continue. It was then that Kreet understood. She kept her voice calm.

“You must do what you think is right. It is not the will of Pelor that you should have to make this commitment before you’re ready, Ashley. There is a maxim at the Monastery that took me years to understand, but I am beginning to. Life is not light, and Death is not darkness. It is a hard precept to grasp, and only experience can illuminate it. There are followers of Life that proclaim that all life is good, and who say all Death is evil. But Pelor teaches otherwise. We often agree with the followers of Life, as we often fight against followers of Death. But Life and Death are not Good and Evil. There are times when Good comes from Death, and there are times when Evil springs from Life. It is a hard thing, and Life in this case has brought you a burden you’re not ready to take on. This is evil. But Ashley, I am ready.”

Kreet closed her eyes and prayed for insight from Pelor. Whether the answer came from him or from herself, she couldn’t say. But her faith answered that question.

“I’ll take it, if you don’t want it Ashley.”

The girl looked up at her. “Really? Oh you’re joking. You couldn’t raise a human baby.”

“I was raised by a human monk. A man who had never had children of his own. Yet, he burdened himself with me willingly and with love, and did good job of raising me too. It is time for me to repay that and find out if I am as qualified as he was. Ashley, you don’t need this man. All that is required is love.”

“And gold…” she began to cry.

“Gold comes and goes. But you are loved here - and if you are loved you will never go hungry. That is a teaching of Pelor, and one I believe in. If you don’t want this child, please let me have it. I want to love and to be loved by it. It would be the greatest gift anyone has ever given me.”

As the words left her mouth, Kreet realized she meant every word. Her eyes teared up, mimicking Ashley’s but for a completely different reason. Ashley saw darkness ahead. Kreet saw only light. And her words carried conviction. Ashley brightened up. Kreet had given the young woman hope, and that made all the difference. This was not how Kreet imagined she would spread the Light of Pelor, but she saw it now. This was one way at least.


	18. Seeing Red

A month later, the promise became moot. Ashley came to her one morning, before the others had risen. She was not pregnant. Kreet tried to share her relief as best she could, but inwardly she could not. For a month she had seen a future that looked as bright as any she could have imagined - at least without Brand. But the child was not to be, and it left Kreet feeling depressed for a few days. Eventually she got over it though, and as she took a tray of ale to a table of travelers, she saw Ashley flirting with some locals and realized that something had, after all, come from the incident. Kreet now had a sister. The two had become inseparable.

She smiled at the men as she delivered their mugs, thinking about how Pelor worked in ways she could never comprehend.

“Hold on there, miss!” one of the men said, grabbing her roughly by the wrist.

“Why certainly sir! Something I can get for you?” she squeaked.

“Not much up top, girly, but that mouth looks nice and wet,” he leered.

The stranger’s partner scowled, “Garth, she’s a fuckin’ lizard! She’d nip your pecker off.”

“Naw, she’s a good girl, aren’t you?” the first said, running his other hand over her neck and shoulder. “Smooth like a snake. You wouldn’t hurt my snake would you?”

Kreet cringed. It wasn’t like she hadn’t met the like before, but this guy was really holding her tight. She tried the coy approach first.

“Sir, as much as I’d like to, I don’t think you’d fit! And I’m afraid my teeth _are_ pretty sharp. Sorry, I’m just not really built for…”

“Nip your pecker off, I tell you,” the other man said, interrupting her.

“Ah well,” the drunk said and loosened his grip. “You’re probably right. Tell you what, you look like you’ve got a plenty big ass. I bet you could take us both!”

Suddenly his other hand went to her crotch and her eyes glowed instantly red. This was well over the line.

Across the room, she heard Red ring a bell. It was Nick’s alert and he was rounding the bar, but the other man had risen behind her.

“Now that I could go for!” he said lewdly and ran his hand along her tail.

Instinct, reflex and training took over before she even consciously knew what she was doing. Her tail lashed viciously and with full speed at the head of the man behind her, sending him sprawling against the wall, but not before she ripped a bloody gash in his thigh with a talon. She spun out of the first man’s grip and kept the arc of her tail going. It crashed against the other man’s back, rolling him to the floor. Nick was barely two steps away from the bar by then as Kreet rolled to the side and the man called Garth got to his feet. The other man began to scream, holding his leg while dark blood spurted from around his fingers.

“You goddamn lizard,” Garth spat, wiping a little blood from his own mouth. She watched him advance from her back on the floor, her tail underneath her. His arms were outstretched, preparing to grab her bodily. Her tail could do no direct harm, but she used it to push her waist high into the air. The man wasn’t prepared for this and he stopped for a moment over her.

At the last millisecond, she retained just enough sanity to retract her claws. Even so, the kick she delivered, backed not only by her powerful legs but by her tail thrusting them forward, literally threw the man off his feet and across the room to hit the door. The impact was hard enough to break the latch and send his body out into the night beyond. She was breathing hard as she sat up on the floor, trembling with rage and adrenaline.

“Holy shit!” Nick said as he got to where Kreet sat, looking around her as if to find another target in range.

Cherry arrived next, looking to the man screaming, his leg bleeding badly. “Red, get a towel. Quick! He’s passing out.”

Kreet glared at Nick as he approached, her eyes still bright red with rage. He backed up a step, “Now wait a minute Gator! I’m the good guy, remember?”

Her lips curled around her teeth involuntarily, but Ashley took her hand. She looked at the familiar face with alarm at first, but then recognition took it’s place and the fury dimmed.

“GODDAMMIT RED! WHERE’S THAT TOWEL?” Cherry screamed.

Kreet steadied herself. Slowly she began to comprehend what had happened.

“Cherry, let me see him.”

“Gator, I think you’ve killed him,” the blonde woman said, looking up at her, blood staining her hands and face.

Kreet put her hands out, kneeling to touch the man’s leg. The bloodied shreds of his pants clung to the wound beneath, and the dark blood had stopped flowing.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

She closed her eyes and sought the power of Pelor. Like an old friend from a lifetime ago, it came back to her. She had learned a lot in the years since Karl’s fall about the healing arts. Most was not magic, and had a lot to do with cleanliness and rest, but not all. She heard the sound of the girls clearing out the tavern - at least of those patrons who hadn’t already left on their own. But she was focused on the man laying underneath her hands. She felt the wound closing and the heart, though deprived of too much blood, relentlessly doing it’s job with what remained. The wound closed and the bleeding stopped.

Now she began the more miraculous step. Inside his veins, blood reproduced and increased. The red water that was his life was replenished under her hands. She visualized it. She believed it. She _KNEW_ it. She opened her eyes, and her patient opened his.

Cherry gasped. She had never seen the Cleric’s art performed before. No one here had.

“A miracle,” whispered Ashley in awe.

“It is,” Kreet confirmed, not taking her eyes off the man. His eyes focused on hers. The new blood that pumped within his veins was pure and he was no longer drunk.

“Who are you?” Kreet asked.

“Trace. My name’s Trace. What happened?”

“You got a little drunk Trace. You and your friend,” Kreet said calmly, then suddenly looked to the door.

“He’s okay,” Red assured her as she stepped up. “Staggered off apparently.”

“You’d better go find your friend, Trace,” Kreet said, helping the man to his feet.

He nodded, but kept looking at Kreet.

“It’s okay, Sir. You’re okay. Go on, your friend is out there somewhere. You’ll recognize him as the guy with the big bruise in the middle of his chest,” Kreet chuckled, adding, “If he hasn’t broken a rib. If so, send him back here. I can help with that.”

“I… I will,” the man named Trace assured her, then he walked out into the night.

“Well, that’s a tale that’s going to be around a while,” Red said, sitting down with Cherry on the floor.

“How do you think it’ll go?” Cherry asked, taking the towel and wiping her hands.

“Oh, pretty well I think. One thing’s for sure, no one is going to be messing with Gator anytime soon!”

“I’d say not. Gator, you know who’s going to have to clean up this mess, right?” Cherry said, but she was smiling now.

“I’ll go get the mop,” Kreet sighed.


	19. Quest

In fact, someone did try to mess with Gator later that night. She’d gone out to dump the dirty, bloody water out when a figure approached from the side of the Tavern. He must have thought he was sneaking up on her, she thought, but Gator spotted him instantly.

“Back for more Garth?” she asked, not even turning around. “He was right you know. I’d nip your pecker off without even thinking about it. Sure you want to do this again?”

The figure retreated into the night without a word and she chuckled. If truth be told, she had actually been a little frightened. She was still a small kobold. But he was no warrior either. Had she not retracted her claws before that kick, she would have eviscerated him. And _that_ , she thought, would take a real miracle to recover from.

Fortunately the two weren’t seen again in town, but the scrappy little kobold’s reputation certainly gained some appreciation. She noticed she didn’t get as many butt-slaps as she had before. Oddly, she vaguely missed that. There was something weirdly comforting about knowing the patrons well enough, and them being that at-ease around her, that they could take that liberty. It was a small price to pay for the newfound respect she had gained, she supposed. It wasn’t the last fight she got into, but it was the most serious. Nick and the others didn’t worry about her anymore. She clearly could handle herself.

Over the next two years, she did become a minor celebrity of sorts. She still stayed off the streets during the day mostly, more to avoid the direct sunlight than to avoid the townsfolk though. She also got her boobs, at least a little. Nothing like the human women of course, but she felt good that she actually had a little something to cover with her blouse finally. The monks continued to avoid her, but that was to be expected. She’d heard rumors that the Abbot had died and the new Abbot had a strict prohibition against any fraternization with her or the Wicked Kobold.

She had done the favor that Red had requested so long ago as well. She had posed for a new sign above the door to inaugurate the official name change. If the woodcutter’s work was somewhat idealized, she didn’t mind. Alright, she thought, idealized was being generous. He definitely had _not_ modeled her body from life, but from his obviously oversexed imagination.

Once again, though she hadn’t expected it, she’d found a home again. People were in the main, good. Life was good. And if sometimes late at night she would lie awake and wonder what had happened to her old friends at the Monastery, it didn’t bother her overmuch.

And then, one evening late in the year, as the leaves were beginning to fall and the temperature began to cool, she was walking back to the Tavern from buying some produce at the nearby market when a whiff of smoke caught her nose. Far in the distance, she thought she heard a bell ringing. Automatically she turned towards the woods that separated the town from the monastery and saw a dark cloud rising from beyond that would have been invisible to humans. She hurried to the tavern.

“What is it Gator?” Red asked, seeing her worry.

“Something’s happening at the Monastery. A fire or something.”

“Well, that’s not your business anymore, is it?” Ashley said, putting away the vegetables Kreet had brought in.

“I… I guess not. No, you’re right. It’s not my business,” Kreet concluded.

An hour later, it came through the door and became her business in a big way.

She recognized Karl instantly, though he’d grown a beard since she’d last seen him. If the limp didn’t give him away, the eyes certainly did. With him was a man clad in steel, a rarity in the rural town. An Adventurer. She knew him too.

“Mekelson. What are you doing here?” she asked, scowling.

“Demon raider,” he said between gulps of air. “At the Monastery.”

“Another Demon raid? For Pelor’s sake, why aren’t you back there fighting them?”

“Gone,” Karl said, and for the first time she noticed the wild look in his eyes.

“Gone? Then what…”

“They took my boy, Kreet. _They took little Paulie!_ ”

“WHAT?!”

Mekelson shook his head, “They didn’t just attack the Monastery, Kreet. They took Karl’s boy. His wife’s in a bad way too. Kreet, we need you.”

“ME? Why me? Go after them!”

“We will, but only you can guide us. Kreet, they came from your old warrens.”

“Wait… how can you know that?”

“Brand,” Karl said, the light in his eyes looking desperate.

“Brand told you? How would he know?”

Karl shook his head. “No Kreet, Brand was with them. Brand took my boy!”

Kreet’s mouth dropped open, not believing what she was hearing.

“Come on kid,” Mekelson said, “We can’t waste time here. We’ll explain on the way. But no one knows those caverns like you do. We’ll never find them without you.”

Kreet looked at her friends around the tavern. Ashley looked worried, as did the rest of them, but Red nodded. “Gator… Kreet. Follow your light. Do what you can. But be careful!”

“I will. Thank you all, for everything. I’m no Adventurer, you know. If I don’t come back…”

“You’ll come back,” Cherry said. “We just changed the sign!”

They all laughed nervously for a second, then Kreet said her goodbyes and ran out with the other two. Another man stood outside. A man she knew.

“Kevin? From the bakery?!”

“Hi Kreet!”

Mekelson looked from one to the other. “Kreet, you know Kevin?”

“Know him? I have to slap his hands away every night! Kevin, what are you doing here?!”

“He’s the best tracker around,” Mekelson explained. “Now let’s go!”


	20. Vosa

“But, I thought he was at the Monastery! Or had started his Apostlate by now anyway,” Kreet said as they ran back through the path in the woods.

“He left the day after you, Kreet,” Karl said, hobbling as best he could along the rough path. “He thought you were going back to your old home.”

“Idiot,” Kreet muttered.

“He was. He was awfully pissed off, Kreet. Wouldn’t listen to reason. Cursed the Monastery, cursed Pelor. Kreet, he lost it after they kicked you out.”

Kreet’s mind raced faster than her feet. But still, joining a demonic league? Surely that wasn’t the Brand she knew.

“Still, Karl, a _demon_? Brand would never…”

Karl interrupted her as they came out and she saw the burning remnants of his house. “You didn’t see him Kreet. He _really_ lost his shit.”

“And you’ve not heard from him since?”

“Not till today. Kreet, he’s not the same guy he used to be.”

“But why would he want your boy? Oh god, Karl! Where’s Vosa?” she said as they passed beyond the smoking ruin.

“She’s in the Sanctuary. Cleric Quint is looking after her. She was burnt pretty bad,” Mekelson explained.

“Kevin, are you still back there?” Kreet said, turning around. But the baker was right on their heels.

“Dammit Kevin you run faster than all of us. Why are you staying behind.”

The baker smiled. “View’s better!”

Kreet would have laughed if the circumstances were different. “Well don’t get any ideas. You stay here while we go into the Sanctuary, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Gator!” he said and planted himself at the door obediantly.

Karl looked at her. “Gator?”

She shrugged, “What can I say? He likes me!”

When they got to the Sanctuary, the man Kreet had known as her master looked old. His hair had gone white in the time since she’d last seen him and he rose from a bed as the three entered. The form under the sheet was barely recognizable, but she could see that Vosa was healing rapidly. Karl got to her first.

“Did you find her?” Vosa croaked and wheezed.

“She’s here, love,” Karl answered back, holding her hand.

“She can’t see,” the Cleric said. “But her eyesight will return. I can’t heal all of this, but she’ll recover.”

“Kreet, are you there?”

Kreet looked at the woman that she’d despised in her heart for so long. Now she could feel nothing but pity.

“I’m here Vosa.”

“Kreet, I’m sorry… for everything. Please understand, they made me.”

Kreet looked up at Karl, uncomprehending, but Vosa continued.

“They told me what to say. You and Brand… You’re a kobold! It… seemed like the right thing to do.”

“It’s okay, Vosa.”

“No it’s not!” Vosa said, trying to sit up. “Dammit, it’s not okay! It’s wrong. I knew you loved him, Kreet. I knew. It’s payback, Kreet. Brand… he’s paying me back for what I did to you. To both of you!”

Kreet patted her hand.

“I’m sorry Kreet. If I’d have been a stronger woman, I wouldn’t have let it go this far. But I wasn’t. I just wanted Karl and little Paulie. Kreet, please… help me!”

“I’ll do whatever I can, Vosa. We’ll get him back.”

“You didn’t see the demon. Oh forgive me, Paulie. It’s eyes were fire! _Kreet, it has my BOY_!”

Kreet’s eyes watered in sympathy.

“We’ll get him back, Vosa,” Karl assured his wife, but she had lapsed into incomprehension.

“ _IT HAS MY BOY!!!_ ”

Karl looked at Kreet, his eyes anguished.

“We have to go, Karl,” Mekelson said to Quint and Karl. “The sooner the better.”

“I’ll go too,” Karl demanded.

“Karl, your leg…” the warrior started, but Karl protested.

“I can move as fast as she can!”

“And I,” Quint said.

“Three Clerics?” Mekelson sighed. “We need another Tank is what we need!”

“I’m a Tank,” Quint said, rising. “Karl, ease her suffering while I get my armor on. The healing will continue on it’s own but any relief is helpful.”

Karl closed his eyes took over as his Master left the room.

“A Tank?” Kreet said, looking at the steel-clad warrior.

Mekelson shrugged, “Damned if I know, but he’d better get back fast. They’ve been gone an hour at least, and they know where they’re going.”

A figure returned that Kreet barely recognized. The wings on it’s helm declared it’s nature though. A Paladin of Pelor stepped from myth into reality in front of her. 

“Great God!” Mekelson exclaimed.

The figure opened it’s helm. “Afraid not. It’s just me,” Quint said. His face looked out of place and old. But he moved as if he’d long worn the shining armor which put Mekelson’s steel to shame.

“You are a _Paladin_?”

“I have sworn off that label. I was a Paladin. Now I just teach Clerics.”

“Well if that demon is anything like what Vosa describes, we’ll need a Paladin,” Mekelson said, standing up. “It doesn’t sound like any lesser Demon to me.”

“I’ll do all I can.”

Karl stood and one of the Acolytes who had been standing by sat at his place and began to chant.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

The four left the Sanctuary and out to the courtyard where Kevin, a wagon and two horses were waiting.

“Sorry Kreet,” Quint said, sitting in the cart beside Kevin while Mekelson and Karl climbed up to take the reigns. “You’ll have to sit back here with us. You’d spook the horses. I know it’s not the charging steed you might have expected, but we’ll all move faster this way. Did you bring your sunglasses?”

Kreet patted her pack. “Never without em.”

“Good. Then we’re off.”

Kreet turned to where Karl sat as he began the wagon rolling. “Karl, do you know where Ka'Plo used to live?”

Karl shook his head, but Mekelson knew the way.

“Let’s go there first,” Kreet suggested. “He had a map of the caverns. My memory isn’t that good. We’ll need it.”

Mekelson nodded and they were off at speed.

“I thought he gave the Monastery all his books,” Karl said as they rode.

“Not the maps. He didn’t want anyone to use them. But I know where he hid them.”

“After all this time, what if they’re not there anymore?” Karl asked, alarmed.

Kreet shrugged, “Then we’ll have to rely on my memory anyway. And see just how good of a Tracker Kevin actually is!”

“Best there ever was,” Kevin said, thumping his chest.

The odd sight of a knight, a Paladin, a robed Cleric, a baker, and a little kobold Tavern Wench bouncing along the road greeted a very few people, but the little party didn’t slow for anything as they sped through the night.


	21. Ghosts

It was well past midnight when they pulled up to the wood where the shack Kreet had grown up in stood. The path was overgrown, but Kreet had no problem working her way in with her night vision, while she had the others stay behind. She’d never believed in life-after-death unless animated corpses counted, but as the vine-covered remains of the shack came into view she felt the old monk’s presence anyway. The place even smelled familiar. She wondered what had ever happened to his cat.

The windows were just open holes now, the porch they had sat on years ago was crumbling, but a chair still sat there as if waiting for it’s owner to return.

“There are ghosts here,” Kreet said to herself. “But I brought them with me.”

Inside she had to step carefully as the floorboards had broken through in many places, but the fireplace was intact and the brick was still lodged in place. She slid it out carefully and reached far back. A spider or two may have been disturbed, but she smiled as she remembered their taste. It had been a long, long time since she’d eaten a spider. She felt the leather-bound map and drew it out, dusting it off. As she looked at it, more memories came back to her. She knew the lines of this map not as old charcoal scribbles but as a real place she had once lived in. She tucked the package under her arm and started to make her way back out.

Suddenly she stopped. There was a ghost standing in the corner, dressed in Ka'Plo’s robe. She knew it was a ghost because it was the one point of darkness her vision wouldn’t light. It did not move, but just watched her.

“Master?” she asked quietly.

“Kreet, my child,” it answered back as if from a long distance. “You’ve returned. How is your life? Did I do well by you?”

“I am fine, Master,” she said, glad she had tucked away the map. Tears would stain the old parchment. “You did well.”

The ghost didn’t move, but she heard it’s voice again. “Good. That is good. I know your family. They are proud of you, Kreet.”

It was too much. She collapsed on the rickety, dusty, leaf-strewn floor. “My family? You know my family?”

“Yes, Kreet,” the apparition said. “They have forgiven me. You are my redemption, Kreet.”

“Me? But I’m nothing. I’ve done nothing. I’m a worthless Tavern Wench who hasn’t done a thing with her life.”

“Oh! So that’s when you are. We don’t see you as you do, Kreet. We see _all_ of you. We even see you here with us. You are much more than that, my child. Or you will be. Or you have been. It’s hard to explain.”

“Master, can you help me? There’s a demon… and…”

The ghost didn’t move, but it did reply, “We cannot help. We can only watch. But we’re proud of you, Kreet. You are our child.”

The voice had changed. She realized it was speaking in the Kobold tongue now.

“Mother!” she cried, finally recognizing the voice from so long ago she didn’t think she _could_ recognize it.

“I am here, child. But this is not good for you. Go now. We will see you soon enough. Your Master is right. We are so very, very proud of you.”

“I miss you Mother. I miss you all so much.”

“I know child. We all know. We miss you too, in our way. But you are here with us too. You won’t live forever child. No one would want that. You’ll be with us again, and then we will celebrate. But you have your life to live first. Go and live it well, as we know you will. Don’t despair. Life is long and hard, child. You know that already. But it doesn’t last forever. And when it is over, we will all celebrate your return to us.”

She began to tremble. She didn’t know why. Someone else was coming, though the ghost didn’t move. She heard another voice, one she recognized too.

“Kreet,” it said. “Save me.”

Her eyes grew large and a blue glow began, though the voice was fading.

“I will,” she said, staring into the blackness as if to see who it was beyond.

The voice faded out and she realized she had been praying. The hole that she thought was a spirit was just an old robe, left behind, empty and forgotten. She walked over to it and took it down from it’s hook. It crumbled to dust and rags, but something fell from it and she picked it up. It sparkled in the moonlight from the broken roof, and even more when a tear hit it just right. It looked like a black jewel. “Death is not always evil,” she said to herself, even if she didn’t quite know why. She pocketed it and left the shack to it’s crumbling fate. She didn’t care about it anymore. She carried her spirits with her.

The others waited by the wagon.

“Did you find it?” Karl asked hopefully.

She nodded, but didn’t say anything as she hopped back into the back. Kevin took her hand. “Are you alright?” he said, actually not leering at her for a change. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

She looked at him. “I think I’m okay. I saw no one,” she said. “Only what I brought with me. But I found this.”

She pulled the shiny black jewel from her pack and showed it to Kevin.

“What?” he said, confused.

“This. I don’t know what it is,” she said, holding it up closer for him to see. Surely even in the starlight of the night he could see now.

“Kreet, there’s nothing in your hand,” the Cleric Quint said from her other side.

She looked at him curiously, then back to the jewel. They couldn’t see it? Odd.

“Sorry, bad joke I guess,” she said, but Quint noticed she put something back in her pack.

Kevin took her hand. She jumped a little at the heat and realized she was cold. “Kreet,” he said. “You’re freezing!”

“I… guess I am! Kevin, don’t read anything into this - really. But… can you hold me a little?”

“Sure Gator,” he said happily and did so.

“He might be a perv,” Kreet thought as she threatened to tail-slap his hand away from parts it had no right to stray to, “but he’s a perv for me. And he’s warm. He’ll do for now.”

The jostling of the wagon and the warmth lulled her to sleep for a few minutes as they approached the caverns she had grown up in. She didn’t dream.


	22. Entrance

The morning sun hadn’t yet risen when they stopped.

“This way,” Mekelson guided them.

“You’ve been here before?” Kreet asked as she hopped down, slapping Kevin’s hand away again absentmindedly.

“I have,” Mekelson admitted. “But don’t you remember? You used to live here.”

“Not outside. The only time I’ve ever been here, I was in a covered cage.”

“Well, before we go on, let’s take a look at that map,” Mekelson suggested.

“Do you think we may have gotten here before them?” Karl asked, worried but thinking clearly.

“Not likely. We lost time at Ka'Plo’s shack.”

They looked at the map and Kreet showed them the landmarks she recognized.

“What about this area. A lot down there,” Karl pointed out.

“I don’t know that area. We never went there,” Kreet said.

“Why not?” Cleric Quint asked, donning his helm.

Kreet shrugged. “I don’t know. We just stayed away from there. We mostly stayed in these upper areas.”

“You can bet we’ll need to go all the way down,” Mekelson said, putting on his own helm. “That’s where the big beasties always lurk.”

“Mekelson,” Kreet said as they approached the mouth of the cavern, “Be honest with me. Did you ever kill a kobold here?”

He looked back at her through his visor. “Probably,” he said.

“Well, I hate you. I just want you to know that,” she said, not sure if she was serious herself.

The sound of his laughter within his helm was strange. “Oh hell, I know that already! You’re not going to stab me in the back though, are you?”

Karl answered for her, “Mekelson, she’s a Cleric of Pelor. She’s not going to do any backstabbing.”

“Hmph,” he grunted. “She _was_ a Cleric of Pelor. Who knows what she is now?”

Kreet knocked on his armor and he turned to look down at her. “I am still a Cleric of Pelor, and don’t you forget it… Tank.”

The big man nodded while Kevin looked around the mouth of the cave.

“A lot of footsteps here. Different types, but there’s something big with them. Yup, they came this way, and recently.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Quint said.

“Let me go in first,” Kreet suggested. “No light, no sounds. Just to make sure the entrance is clear. I’ll be right back.”

They all agreed with that plan and Kreet the Kobold entered the caverns that had once been her home stealthily and alone.

———————————

She soon returned to the group.

“No one around nearby anyway,” she declared. “Kevin, how many do you think there were?”

“Hard to say. 10 maybe? No more than 20. Plus that something very big.”

“The demon,” Karl said, though they all knew that.

“Look, guys… I do appreciate you bringing me along,” Kevin said, looking nervous. “Really I do. But demons… And these caves, the floors are stone. I can’t track anything over stone.”

The Paladin Quint put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Wait for us at the wagon, Kevin. Kreet, how extensive are these caverns?”

“Big, Master,” she replied. “The scale on the map is in miles. It will probably take most of the day to reach the depths, and that assumes we go straight there.”

“Well, wait as long as you feel able, Kevin. If something comes out of here that’s not us, you’ve got the horses. If you’re not here when we get back… well, we’ve got our legs.”

“I’ll be here,” he said forlornly.

Kreet walked up to him and gave him a hug. “Kevin, it’s not for every man to be a hero. Some of us are born to be support. There’s no shame in that.”

Kevin knelt to bring him to her level. “Sorry Gator. I’d go with you if I thought I could. But caves… I can’t. I’m not good in dark places.”

Kreet took his hand and held it to her cheek. “I’ll owe you a table dance, you perv.”

“I’ll hold you to that!” he said, giving her hand a kiss and heading back towards the wagon.

“Just the four of us then,” Mekelson said.

“Come on, Victor,” the Paladin replied, using the Knight’s first name, “You surely didn’t think he would do us much good did you?”

“Never know what can swing the tide of battle. No help for it though. Let’s go.”

Karl retrieved a small mace from his pack and spoke an incantation at it. The weapon began to glow, though it gave off no heat.

“Ah! Nice magic young man!” the Knight said as they began to walk into the darkness.

“Continual Flame,” remarked the Paladin proudly. “I taught him that.”


	23. Traps

To say they walked stealthily deeper into the caverns would be a lie. The Knight clanged along with all the stealth of a rattling cart and, while the Paladin’s armor was of a finer build and lighter alloy, it was no less noisy. They would not have the advantage of surprise here.

“What about you, Kreet. Have you been continuing your studies?” Karl asked as they tried to ignore the clamor of the other two men.

“Not really,” she admitted. “Not like you mean anyway.”

“I imagine you’ve learned quite a bit as a tavern wench, at least about nature and biology,” Karl said with a halfhearted smile as he continued to look around warily.

Kreet looked down at herself and realized she was still wearing her tavern outfit. Suddenly she wished she had brought other clothes with her.

They soon came to a breakaway path to the right and downwards. Kreet pulled out the map.

“Dead end,” she said, pointing at it.

“We go straight into the depths,” Karl replied with conviction. “My boy has been with them for nearly a full day now. I won’t rest until I’ve got him back.”

“Then onward we go,” Kreet agreed, folding up the map and putting it away.

Every once in a while they would stop and to listen for any signs of life. They’d done this twice before they came to the next major path leading away, again to their right.

“Kreet, are you okay? You look tense,” the Paladin said behind his helm.

“We’re close to where my family lived. That’s all. I don’t hear or sense anything.”

“Another dead end?” Karl asked, gesturing towards the side passage.

“Not really. I don’t need the map for this area. I didn’t think I would remember it, but now that I’m here… the smell of the place… seeing it with my darkvision again… I remember these walls. No, that path circles away but rejoins the main path just before it splits off into two maybe a mile ahead. There’s some side caves down there though. We lived in one for a while.”

Again they resumed their march down the main passage. It remained quite wide and tall, with other paths branching off randomly. It was at one of these that Kreet stopped suddenly, and the others all stopped too.

“Something’s wrong,” she said quietly. “This doesn’t look right. Those boulders weren’t up there before…”

Suddenly something crashed and the boulders she was pointing at fell from their perch on a ledge above them. The four scrambled to get out of the way, Mekelson taking a pretty significant hit as one crashed against him, but his armor deflected most of the impact.

“Mekelson, you alright?” Quint called.

“Bruised leg, but I’m okay.”

“Kreet? Karl?”

“Fine here,” Karl said from the other side of the rock fall.

“Me too,” Kreet said beside him.

Karl and Kreet climbed over the rocks to rejoin the armored pair.

“A trap,” Kreet declared as she looked at where the rocks had fallen from.

“Did we trip it somehow?” Karl asked, holding his glowing mace closer.

“Not this one,” Mekelson said with conviction. “This was activated by somebody. See that piece of wood? Got a rope tied to it. And the rope leads back to that little path. Someone was watching us and pulled it.”

“Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a demon would do. They wouldn’t waste their time,” Quint said.

“No, it doesn’t. This looks like the work of something else,” Mekelson said, removing his helm and looking straight at Kreet.

“This looks like the work of kobolds to me.”

* * *

Kreet returned Mekelson’s stare. “Couldn’t be. Ka'Plo said ours was the last clan in here, and he would surely know!”

“It’s been a long time, Kreet,” Karl pointed out. “A new clan could well have moved in by now.”

“Well, it’s a sure bet they know we’re here. Do we try and find them, or go on?” Mekelson asked, standing up and testing his bruised leg.

“Kreet,” Karl said, “I know you’d like to find them, but…”

Kreet shook her head, “Later. They’re not our concern. Let’s get Paulie back as soon as possible.”

Karl nodded, relieved not to have to argue with his friend.

They continued on, now wary for traps. They did see another similar one further on, but they stayed clear of it and it wasn’t triggered.

“No kobold in sight though,” Karl pointed out.

“We can be pretty stealthy when we want to,” Kreet replied sarcastically. “When we’re not following a bunch of iron suits that is…”

Finally they came to a place where the main passage branched off, one heading slightly upward, the other slanting down.

“Down we go,” Kreet said after they’d stopped again.

“We didn’t bring any supplies for this,” Mekelson complained. “Getting pretty thirsty over here. How about you, Quint?”

Kreet frowned at the men. “You should have said so earlier! We must have passed three streams at least, and all the water is good. The last one wasn’t too far back. Wait here, I’ll be back in just a minute.”

She padded back into the darkness behind them and soon found the little trickle of water off the main path just a few feet in a side passage.

“Who?” a voice said as she filled the water skin she had in her pack. It was spoken in Kobold.

“Kreet,” she replied, taking care not to look around. The voice sounded like it came from overhead.

“You go with Big People?”

“I do. We leave Kobolds alone.”

“You go to Fire People? You are Fire People?”

“No. We go to fight Fire People.”

“Oh. That is good. You leave Kobolds alone?”

“We won’t bother Kobolds.”

“That is good. You will kill Fire People?”

“We will try. Fire people have a young one of ours.”

“You will not. Big Fire Person will kill you all. But you leave Kobolds alone, we leave you alone.”

Kreet had to admit the likelihood of that outcome. But at least there was one less faction in the caves that would try to kill them. Probably.

The voice spoke again, growing fainter.

“You stupid Kobold Kreet. Stupid, stupid Kobold. Kreet the dead kobold is stupid…”

She heard another voice join in to the singsong improvised melody as the unseen watchers left.

“Kreet the dead Kobold, stupid stupid Kobold… it sang as it faded. It bothered her most that the tune was rather jolly.


	24. Meeting Bob

“Thanks Kreet,” Mekelson said, taking the skin from the little kobold. “Stupid of us to come unprepared.”

Kreet laughed, “Hey, I’m the one still dressed like this! Think I can seduce the demon?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Quint said, taking the water from Mekelson. “Say, do you want a weapon? I’ve got an extra dagger here if you’d like.”

“No thank you, Master,” she responded. “I use my claws and teeth. I never drop them.”

“Fair enough. Well, let’s move on.”

Hours later they found themselves deep in the caverns. They’d long since left the upper chambers that Kreet recognized behind and were relying on Ka'Plo’s maps now.

Finally they topped a rise in the ever-narrowing path and saw a flickering glow coming from ahead.

“Shhh!” Karl said when he saw it, but Mekelson shook his head.

“They know we’re here Karl. They couldn’t possibly not.”

“He’s right, Karl,” Quint said, putting his helm back on. “This will be no surprise attack. Watch for traps or hiding places where they might get around behind us. Mekelson, are you ready?”

Mekelson nodded behind his own helmet.

“Okay. Kreet, you and Karl have been trained. Mekelson and I will be the Tanks. You help us as you can. If you can’t, try and get a ranged attack in on any of them you see. If they have archers, ignore them unless they target you. We’re proof against most all arrows. Mekelson, the demon first, right?”

“Of course. Kill it and the rest should scatter.”

“What about Brand,” Karl asked.

“He’s one of them now, Kreet. You know what to do. But be wary of Paulie. They may use him as a shield.”

A voice came out of the space ahead, it’s mouth unseen but the voice was unmistakable.

“Don’t be stupid, Master Quint. The child is behind you. Behind that stalagmite formation. Go ahead, Karl. Go get him. He’s fine.”

Karl looked at the others. Quint nodded towards the formation and he headed off. Though he took the glowing mace with him, the light ahead was sufficient to make out the shadow that emerged around the corner. It was Brand.

Karl screamed from behind the stalagmites.

“Oh be quiet Karl. He’s not dead. He’s just been Held and then the spell bound. It will be released in, oh, about another 6 hours I expect. What he’ll open his eyes up to then is up to you.”

Karl came out from behind the formation holding his boy, apparently sleeping.

“Brand, why did you do this? What’s happened to you?!” Kreet yelled, stepping out from behind the Paladin.

The figure stopped, it’s face would have been in total shadow to the others, but Kreet saw his face just fine. It was twisted somehow. It howled.

“Kreet!!!? You found her?!” he shouted, backing off the way he had come.

“Brand, she was right in town all the time. If you’d have just stayed around…”

“Kreet!” Brand screamed, and turned back, running out of their sight.

Before she could react, a sound that wasn’t a sound came to their minds.

“The one you know as Brand is with me now. Some of you will be with me soon too. Some of you are good devotees, but your allegiance is misplaced. We will rectify that this day. Some, however, will not.”

Behind them came a deafening roar and all turned to see what was happening. The ceiling was collapsing, and the collapse was spreading rapidly towards them.

“ _RUN!_ ” Mekelson shouted and led the way, heading towards the flickering light ahead. As they rounded the corner, the collapse behind them stopped and they found themselves inside a huge chamber. The walls fell away to both sides and the ceiling was lost to view. The source of the fire that burned in a huge brazier that hung from the ceiling was unknown, but it did light the cavern as well a huge shape beyond. Brand was no where in sight.

“Now,” said the voice inside their heads, “you must pass my Behemoth. I call him Bob.”


	25. Arrows

Bob’s eyes opened and seemed to burn with an internal fire that mimicked the flames in the Brazier above their heads. The creature stood up, half again as tall as a man and bellowed with a sound that made Kreet put her hands to the sides of her head. When she looked back up, it was charging. The Paladin and the Knight drew their blades and looked hopelessly small.

Karl dropped to one knee and cast a spell on both Mekelson and Quint. Kreet didn’t recognize it, but she was sure it was some sort of protection spell. She considered what she should do, then noticed Mekelson stepping away from Quint, forcing the charging monster to choose. It continued directly towards the Paladin and Kreet made her decision. She cast Shield of Faith on her old Master.

As it neared, and she looked up from her casting, Kreet saw the thing wielded a wicked, gigantic chain-linked flail. As it neared, it swung the thing in a horizontal arc, the spikes on the end-ball sparking across the floor and impossible to avoid for the Paladin. However, instead of backing away, Quint ran towards the charging demon at the last minute, his sword poised to impale. The arc of the flail was such that Quint was inside it and he jumped over the rushing chain as if it were a child’s play-rope.

Meanwhile, Mekelson was circling around the thing. Kreet was preparing another spell when she heard something sharp next to her. She looked that direction and saw an arrow skittering away.

“Karl! Archers on the left!” she cried, just in time to see another arrow fly between the two of them. She could no longer watch what was happening to the demon as she ran to the side to avoid the arrows and cast another spell at the two archers that stood upon a ledge some 20 feet off the ground but quite some distance from where they stood. She randomized her direction, but kept coming at the archers as she heard Karl yell something behind her, but she didn’t stop to see what he was yelling about. Finally she felt she was in range and she dropped sliding headfirst to the ground, her hands outstretched in front of her as she cast Sacred Flame at the archer nearest.

He went down with a yell, but the other fired an arrow straight at her. She ducked her head down, hoping it would fly over. In that moment a flash lit up the world. Had she not had her head down, she would have been blinded. But the arrow did not pass over her head - it struck her squarely on one horn, twisting her head around hard. She instinctively felt the horn where the arrow had connected and noticed the notch there, but she had no time to care. Her horns weren’t important, but her position prone on the floor provided a perfect target. She looked up to see there was only one archer now, and he was just now staggering back to his feet and drawing his bow again. The other had been incinerated by Karl’s Bolt.

She felt like she was moving in molasses as she struggled to her feet, but the archer was faster and she knew she was a sitting duck. But he didn’t aim at her. He was aiming at a spot behind her and he loosed the arrow before she could even think about casting any further spells. She heard the impact behind her, a soft, sickening THWACK that was metal-on-meat. She spun around and saw the shaft protruding from Karl’s chest as he dropped to his knees.

She ran back towards him, not neglecting to dodge randomly to the sides as the remaining archer was surely drawing his bow again. She stole a glance toward the armored figures and Bob the Demon. She saw only a flash but it looked like a figure in steel - Mekelson surely - was actually hanging onto it’s back, his arms around it’s neck while a figure in chrome lay underneath it as it’s flail swung around wildly.

She looked back to Karl and another arrow appeared like magic in his leg. “Karl!” she cried as he screamed again, the pain of the new arrow too much to bear. But she realized she couldn’t do anything for him while the archer remained. In one movement, she stopped her dash for her friend, now bleeding on the ground. Her momentum on the smooth stone surface kept her moving while one hand pressed hard against the floor to spin her back around to face the archer. With the other hand she put her sunglasses over her own eyes. She stood from her spin and saw the archer draw his bow back, aiming directly at her. She raised her hands, not to defend, but to attack. She wielded the forbidden spell. If ever there was a time to use it, it was now.

She wasn’t sure if the sunglasses would be enough, but she had no choice. She had to get rid of that archer. As she felt the power of Pelor surge through her and out of her hands, she closed her eyes only at the last possible second. She couldn’t afford to miss. It would be better to be blind that to miss. She saw the archer’s eyes go wide just before she closed hers.

The power was more than she had ever summoned in her life and she felt it must burn her to the core, but then a pain like a thousand hammers struck her right hand. She screamed and fell back, opening her eyes to see the arrow head protruding an inch away from her face from through her palm. She passed out momentarily.


	26. Blades

She recovered quickly, though the pain in her hand was excruciating. She had no time to figure out what was going on behind her. Karl was down and likely bleeding to death. Mekelson and Quint were on their own for now. She gritted her teeth and broke the arrow in her hand in half against the stone floor, screaming at the pain but knowing she was Karl’s only hope. She drew the shaft through her hand then crawled to where Karl lay. He was breathing, conscious still, though he could barely follow her through his agony. He had managed to get the arrow out of his leg, but the one in his chest remained. She didn’t like the sound coming from it as he breathed either.

Then he did something truly unexpected. He touched her with his hands. She felt the power enter her from his touch. Despite his obvious pain, he was healing her, with her meager hand wound!

Nevertheless, it worked and worked fast. Her hand was restored within a few seconds. She looked at him, and he glanced towards where the arrow still protruded, bubbling where the shaft broke his skin whenever he breathed. She gripped the shaft with both hands and pulled.

The arrowhead came out, but it left a bloody tear in its wake. Karl had no more breath for screaming and he passed out mercifully. But with the arrow gone, Kreet now could do her own work on her friend. She closed her eyes and cast the most powerful healing spell she knew. The Healing Prayer was designed to heal up to six allies a small amount. As she prayed, she tried twisting the spell to do something more. She tried to make it heal a single target six times as fast. It was breaking the rules and wouldn’t work, but she brushed that aside. She had Faith. Faith in Pelor. He would not allow something as trivial as spell-casting rules to stop his will, and this surely was his will. She had faith, she knew it would work. It had to work.

Then she opened her eyes. In front of her Karl’s wounds were closed. His eyes opened, and a smile began until he looked behind her. His eyes betrayed fear, and Kreet spun around. The demon was charging directly at the two Clerics. For a split second, she saw the two figures in armor lying on the floor beyond. One was moving, trying to stand. The other was not.

But the fiery eyes drew her own eyes back to it as smoke blew from wounds, billowing behind it. It roared, and she was driven deaf as it came, unstoppable, at the two Clerics. She had no time to cast anything, to pray, to think. She looked back to Karl, sadness in her eyes. She began to say “I’m sorry.” for the last time. But Karl wasn’t laying there waiting for death. He had risen, arms to both sides, head bowed. She had no idea what he was doing. He looked like he was making himself a sacrifice to the marauding demon.

Then, with no more than a second before the demon was on them, a magical wall of blades appeared directly between them and the demon. Kreet could feel wind of the magical slashing blades and the power flowing from Karl to the Wall. And it was huge. Though it tried, the demon had too much momentum. It could not avoid passing through. It’s attempts to stop served one purpose though, the meat that came through was blessedly diverted to one side of Kreet and Karl. It didn’t even have time to scream.

“Very good. Wall of Blades. Powerful spell. Impressive. You will be a welcome addition,” said a voice inside her head, as Karl slumped to his knees. “Well worth the effort to bring you to me and one fire demon. You may proceed.”

Karl helped Kreet back to her feet and they staggered to where Mekelson and Quint were. Mekelson was kneeling and had Quint’s helm off, but the Paladin wasn’t moving.

“Could have used you, boy,” Mekelson said, breathing hard but with nothing but sadness in his words.

Karl didn’t say anything, but put his hand over Quint’s head.

“He’s dead,” he said plainly. Kreet looked at the body of her Master and back to Karl.

“Karl, we have your boy. We can go back now.”

“I don’t think so,” Karl said, looking away from the body. That cave-in…“

"We could climb over it. It doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling,” Kreet pointed out.

“With the boy? Over that rubble?” Mekelson said, still breathing hard. “It would be tough, but possible.”

“And there’s something still here,” Karl said. “Something besides Brand. I doubt it would let us go so easily.”


	27. Lazy Bastard

“But Karl, you must be exhausted. We have no time to rest and replenish our spells either,” Kreet protested.

“You’re right Kreet, I’m done. My power is all but gone. That Blade Wall took all of it. But you have more Kreet. A lot more. I felt it in you. You haven’t trained, so your spells are still low level, but you have gained in power more than you know. I need that power, Kreet. I need it now, before we face whatever is waiting for us with Brand. Kreet, take my hand. You can give me the power I need.”

“To do what, Karl? What’s so important?”

Karl looked back to the body of their dead Master.

“Resurrection!? You can do that!?”

Karl shook his head. “No. I can’t do Resurrection, and you haven’t the power even if I could. But I can Raise the Dead. He’ll be unconcious, but he’ll be alive.”

Mekelson spoke up then, “Karl, even if you can do this, it will probably gain us nothing. Whatever is in here could just tap him on the head and he’d be dead again, and then even Kreet would have nothing left. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Karl looked at Kreet. “He’s got a point. You’ll have almost nothing left yourself.”

Kreet looked back at her Master’s body. Then she took Karl’s hand.

She felt the power leave her and enter Karl. She assumed from there it entered Quint. Through the link, she could feel Karl talking with the soul of her Master. Asking, begging, then commanding him to return to life. That was a bit of a stretch, she thought. She couldn’t imagine commanding her old Master to do anything. But it worked. Breath returned to the body in front of them and Karl opened his eyes.

“Damn stubborn man. He just wants to rest for all eternity. Jeeze, lazy bastard!”

“Karl! You did it, you brought him back!”

Karl looked at the man and kicked at the shiny armor. “Damned if I know why. You got anything left Kreet? Even just a little healing spell will at least get him concious.”

Kreet shrugged and tried anyway. She managed to eek out a little healing spell. The Paladin’s eyes opened.

“Dammit Karl, it was nice there.”

“Welcome back, Master Quint,” Kreet said.

“Don’t bother to thank me or anything,” Karl said, standing up.

“Oh, alright. Thank you for bringing me back to life, Karl,” the Master said, a smile on his face.

“Can you stand?” Mekelson asked him.

“Not in this metal coffin. Get me out of it and I might be able to sit at least.”

The three managed to get the man out of his armor.

“Sorry I can’t help more, Karl. But I think you’re right to continue on. Whatever is in there won’t stop. If it can control a demon of that power, it’s got to be stopped. Leave little Paulie here with me. I’m better than nothing.”

Karl did as his master bid. “I don’t suppose it would let us rest and get our spells back,” he said to Quint as he laid Paulie on his lap.

“Sorry, no,” said a voice in their heads. “You are ready to join me now. Come if you want to live.”

From the far side of the huge space, she saw figures walking calmly out and to either side from beside a passage to an inner chamber. The figures were armed to the teeth and of various races - some of which Kreet recognized only by pictures in books.

Kreet sighed and stood up. She took the hand of Karl on one side, and looked up at Mekelson on the other.

“You know, I still hate you,” she said, though her outstretched hand indicated differently.

“Back in my day we stacked kobold bodies 5 high to use as sandbags,” Mekelson said, but took her hand.


	28. Behold

The three proceeded across the blood-stained floor to an open archway. They passed within into utter blackness which only Kreet could lead them through. Karl still carried his small mace, but they had no power left to illuminate it with. For his part, Mekelson was limping rather badly, but now he was no slower than Karl with his ever-present limp or Kreet and her short, stocky legs.

It wasn’t far before they came to the end of the tunnel. Once again it opened out into a larger room, though not nearly as big as the outer cavern where they’d met the demon. A throne room.

“What do you see?” Karl whispered, mace at hand but knowing it was probably useless.

Kreet sighed. “I think we made a mistake, Karl. We should have tried climbing the rocks.”

A torch was lit at the far end of the room. She saw it was Brand that held it. He walked slowly around the room, lighting sconces on the wall and not looking at them. The men, orcs and other creatures returned from the outer space and took positions, standing stock-still against the walls. Only their breathing indicated they were not just incredibly lifelike statues. Brand stood with them, and in the center of the room was a pit - of what depth Kreet couldn’t guess.

“Welcome, my new Initiates,” said a voice in their heads. On the raised dias sat a creature Kreet had heard tales of, but hadn’t believed in. Now it’s eight tentacles writhed around where it’s mouth should have been in apparently random patterns, but those patters seemed hypnotic, drawing her eyes.

“Mind Flayer,” Mekelson said, spitting out the words.

“Mind Flayer? You humans have such lack of imagination in your words. The little kobold knows better, don’t you Kreet? You have much more descriptive names for my kind. Though truly, there aren’t any quite like me. I am unique. As I build my army, someday soon you will learn better. Some of you call us illithids. Your more scholarly minds would know of the ulitharids. I, however, call myself an octithalid. I put them to shame, honestly. As for you, why, you can call me Lord.”

Kreet stepped forward, unbidden, her little talons clicking echoes off the stone floor. It was odd hearing silence while at the same time hearing the voice in her head.

“Lord,” she began. “I will serve you willingly, if you will let my friends return.”

“Oh will you, little kobold? You must think very highly of yourself if you think you are worth more than these others. But you too are unique I see now. I wouldn’t sully myself to touch the pathetic minds of your kin. Animals at best. But you… you have a human’s mind. Maybe you needn’t die after all. Brand, go fetch the Paladin.”

Brand did as he was commanded, without a flicker of protest.

“I’m sorry, little kobold, but your powers are tiny compared to this man you call Karl. Even your Brand and the old Paladin outclass you. And the knight has some skills with a blade I can use. Now, please… shut up.”

Suddenly something like a whip snapped in her mind. She saw a tendril on the face of her new Lord snap in sync and she was unable to speak. Instead her eyes followed the hypnotic, graceful movements of the Mind Flayer’s ‘face’. She found herself back with the others, not even remembering she had walked back.

“Now, let’s get down to business, shall we? If we can avoid any more interruptions. Ah, our fried the Paladin. Thank you Brand. Why don’t you stay there. You can help the old man stand. Be gentle with the young one. It will be interesting to raise a human from such a young age.”

Brand did as he was bid and held his former Master upright.

“As you might know, slaves, we Illithids can control minds like yours. But I don’t go for the crude methods of my brethren. No, I prefer to do things a little differently. First I will break you. It is so much easier when you’ve broken ties of friendship. I will be your God from now on, and when you look at these creatures beside you, you will want nothing to do with them. And I will do this with no lies or deceptions. Only truth. The truth shall set you free. Free of your misplaced affection for these fellow creatures you brought in with you. I will show you Reality. Only then will I take over your tiny brains. You will fight for me, kill for me and die for me. I know you don’t believe me yet. They never do. Look around you. These didn’t believe me either. But here they are. You wonder how I can do this? I’ve already told you. You will see the _TRUTH_. Now. Behold…”


	29. Truth

Suddenly Kreet no longer was in the cavern with the Mind Flayer. She was, however, in a cavern. She knew she was far, far away from where she had been. Miles… Years… Decades. She wore armor, and under that she wore a chain mail shirt. She wielded a second-rate but serviceable sword. She had no tail, but she had… Oh my god, she was male! She felt the mustaches that were her trademark under the helm. She was Mekelson. A younger Mekelson, but she was him. She knew his thoughts, she knew his lusts, his dreams, his loves and his hates. A flood of knowledge filled her mind. In an instant she knew the man because she _was_ the man. Knew him and loathed him. The things he had done were horrible. She closed her senses and tried to shut out the vision before her, but she couldn’t. She watched helplessly from the back of the young Mekelson’s mind as he tore through the kobolds in front of him. And they were familiar to her mind. She knew these people, but to Mekelson they were just animals. She watched in horror, unable to stop the images from flowing into her. The thoughts, the sounds, the smells… 

After much too long, she found herself back in the room with the Mind Flayer. She could not look at Mekelson. She couldn’t think of him. She couldn’t stand to be near him. She looked up and saw Karl back away from him as well. But her Master, the paladin Quint’s eyes grew wide in horror. Not at Mekelson, but at the Mind Flayer.

“Don’t do this,” he said, pleading.

“Oh, you want to be next?” said a voice in their heads. “You, the great Paladin? The hero of the battle of the Cairn? The great Quint? You didn’t tell your students about this, did you. You told no one. Why? Don’t you want them to know the truth? You say you serve the great Pelor. But he was not the god you served that day, was he, _paladin?_

Suddenly she was whisked away to another time, another place. She wanted to stop it. She wanted to shut her eyes - but she had no control over her eyes. They were attached to the optic nerves of a younger Quint. She could not stop hearing, because the sound came from Quint’s ears. What she heard now she couldn’t stop hearing. They were babies. They may have been enemies, but they were babies. She screamed without a mouth at the mind that she was watching. 

"STOP IT! STOP MOVING YOUR ARM! FOR YOUR SOUL’S SAKE, QUINT, STOP IT!”

But he could not - would not stop. He didn’t want to stop and he couldn’t hear her. She was in his future, not his _now_. She knew his mind in a way no one should know another’s mind. She knew why he was doing this. His friends had been slaughtered around him during the battle. The enemy had used evil magics, evil tactics, evil… evil… EVIL. Now he was divine justice, and he was unstoppable. Nothing they could do could stop him, because he had the power of the War God behind him. He would continue until every green-skinned, fanged maw was silent forever.

And Kreet knew what would happen. She knew the carnage he had wrought that day. Not one left alive. All as revenge for his own friend’s lives. He was _Revenge Incarnate_. Worse, she knew what would happen when he was done. She knew what would happen when the blood-rage left his eyes and he beheld what he had become. The years of loathing and self-mutilation he would endure. All knowing that what he was doing now… right now… could never be undone. These innocents could never be restored. They were lost forever.

And then she was back again. In her own body. She put her hands over her eyes, crying for Quint’s soul as much as for the loss of all those he had killed.

Quint was allowed to fall to his knees in front of Brand. They all looked at him with revulsion. Even Mekelson looked horrified at what the Paladin had done.

“My God man, at least the kobolds were attacking me!”

Quint’s mouth moved, but he couldn’t say anything. He looked at Kreet, but she couldn’t return the gaze. She was failing, she knew. The path of Pelor insisted she find the Good, help the Needy. But there was no help for this man. She had called him Master once. That she could never do again. She looked back at Mekelson. He was a fiend, but compared to Quint…

“Oh Quint,” she said, still not able to look at him. “What are we doing here? We should never have come.”

“No,” said the voice in her head. “You especially should not have. I didn’t want you! When I surveyed this other man’s mind, I saw his loathing for the woman who drove you away from your Monastery. If I could snatch the child away and bring it back here, the father must surely come. But you? You are nothing. You shouldn’t be here. You should be back at your tavern, spilling beer. These… I can use these! I would send you back, but there is one here who still holds affection for you. This ‘Brand’. And he has his own talents, I know. His rage burns hot.”

The Mind Flayer turned to Brand. “You may speak.”

Suddenly Brand fell to his knees beside Quint as if released from a self-imposed restraint.

“Kreet!” he cried, but then he ran to the dais, skirting the pit and knelt in front of the Mind Flayer.

“Please, Lord. Let me die. Don’t let her see. I beg you. Please, let me die first!?”

“I am not a cruel master, young Cleric. You may die,” the creature said with what felt like sincere compassion in her mind.

Brand turned around, facing the pit.

“BRAND!” she screamed. “NO!”

The man she had known and loved stepped down from the Dias. He looked to the Flayer, who nodded, and stepped _around_ the yawning hole.

“Kreet,” he said, kneeling in front of her. “The Lord is true. So goddamnedly true. I’ve done things. I hated them so much for what they did to you. _HATED_ them. That Vosa most of all. She knew what she was doing. She broke us apart, Kreet. Put you through that damned Tribunal. But…”

He looked back at the Mind Flayer.

“He twists things, Kreet. In my head. Oh gods, please let me die before you see. You were always so good. I don’t want you to _see_ me. Not like he does it. Kreet, I am ashamed to death. I would rather die than for you to see what I’ve done this last year. I love you Kreet, in my way. Scales and tail and goofy snout, I love you. I screwed up Kreet. I screwed up bad. _PLEASE_ let me die. Please, remember me like you did… before.”

The voice began again in her head, such a silky, caring voice, “What would you like, little kobold? I’ll let you decide. Your Lord is a merciful Lord, little kobold. You can decide. He can live and you can know the truth, or he can die and you can live in ignorance of who he really is. Which do you prefer? I promise to abide by your wishes, little kobold. He is a Cleric, true, but a minor Cleric. Nothing like this one you brought with you! I can lose him.”

“Brand! I can’t let you die! I just found you again!”

“No, Kreet, this isn’t me! What I’ve done… it’s not me anymore!”

“She’s made her decision, Brand. Let us begin.”

“NO!” Brand screamed and ran towards the pit. The tendrils on the Mind Flayer never stopped their patterns, Kreet noticed.

“BRAND! DON’T!” she called after him but he wouldn’t stop. She looked away, not able to watch him commit suicide.

But inches from falling into the pit, Brand stopped.

“No Brand. This is not what she wants. We must give her what she wants, Brand.”

“Wait,” Kreet said, standing up and walking forward. “I have a better idea. Lord, show him… me.”

“You, little kobold? Your sins are puny. What would be the point. He has so much to show you. No, let’s not. Your life is boring.”

She took hold of Brand’s hands and looked up at his wild eyes, ready to commit suicide just moments ago but prevented.

“Brand, you think I’m so good. I’m not good, Brand. No one is. We have good and bad within us, but we are constantly in transition from one to the other. We flow, Brand. Like a river, we are never the same person twice. The person I am today is not the person I was yesterday, nor the person I will be tomorrow. You are the same.”

“Yes, Brand,” said the voice. “You may speak. But step away from the pit, please.”

“Kreet. You don’t know me. I don’t want you to know me. I’m not who you think I am.”

“Of course you’re not,” she laughed. The sound was odd in the chamber, with all of the eyes on them, but she didn’t care anymore. She was holding hands with Brand, and, for a moment, that’s all she cared about.

“But Brand, your mistake is that you think you know me. You don’t Brand. I want your Lord to let you know what I am, who I am. Then, maybe, you’ll know that your sins are forgivable. We all have sinned, Brand. We can’t help it. We aren’t gods. We sin.”

“Yes, you do. Let’s look at your Kreet, Brand. Your beloved little kobold. She’s a killing beast, Brand. Behold…”


	30. Distraction

She knelt on the floor, feeling the minds of the four men gone now after her ordeal - her ‘revelation’.

She held her hands over her head and would not open them. She knew what she would see, and she couldn’t stand it. The horror in the eyes of her friends. She understood now why Brand had wanted to die. She did too, but now it was too late. They knew her now. They all knew her, even Brand. She wanted to die, but they wouldn’t forget even if she was dead. At least Brand was still alive.

Then she felt a touch on her shoulder, and a noise in her ears that she didn’t expect.

A hand was on her shoulder. Brand was laughing.

She opened her eyes. She felt the probe of the Mind Flayer, but she pushed it aside, ducking under it.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” she said, looking up at him.

“You. We’re probably all going die or become mind-slaves and your worst sin was kicking a drunk?”

“Brand, you saw. I lost all control! He would be dead today if I hadn’t revived him. Brand, I was an animal. I _am_ an animal!”

“Welcome to the club, Kreet. We are all animals. After what you’ve seen, you still think you are less than us? I love you, but your racial self-loathing is ridiculous.”

“Sorry for everything, Brand. But I love you too, no matter what you did.”

Brand stood up and held Kreet’s hand. Her eyes were glowing bright blue.

“I doubt you will think that way after this, but thanks anyway.” Then he turned to the Mind Flayer, who had been oddly silent.

“Go ahead. Do what you will, Mind Flayer.”

But the thing wasn’t paying him any attention. The tendrils were writhing unusually.

“Something comes… What is it? I can’t see,” it said in their minds but not directed at anyone specifically.

A head appeared in the entrance. A kobold head.

“Big Fire Person is dead. Why are you still here?” it said in Kobold.

The Mind Flayer wove his tendrils frantically. Suddenly the figures around the wall unfroze. The kobold backed up out of the room, but it did not run away. It drew a crude weapon and a sound like many small voices yelling with battle rage could be heard outside.

“Kreet,” Brand said quietly while the Mind Flayer’s minions headed towards the exit to meet the mysterious noises outside.

“Yes?”

“Close your eyes,” he said with a smile.


	31. The End

Her eyes went wide for a moment as she saw him turn towards the Mind Flayer. It turned to face him just as he held his hands up and she shut her eyes tight.

Through her lidded eyes, the light was still quite impressive. Fortunately it lasted only a moment. When she reopened them, Brand was on the floor, his mind obviously blasted by the thing on the throne. But it was enough. She saw the Mind Flayer obviously hurt and rising from it’s throne, screaming in her mind. But it’s minions already had their orders and it didn’t have the presence of mind to redirect them. She saw Mekelson begin to run towards it, but the thing twitched a tendril and the knight froze.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She shifted her mind. She became a kobold. A young, stupid and barbaric kobold. She felt the Mind Flayer trying to touch her and watching her approach, but it was unable to find her mind. She refused to don her human intelligence and the Flayer passed over her. Kreet ran at the thing. She kicked it, talons extended and it grabbed her. Its hands held her tight. It was strong. She didn’t expect it to be so strong. It held her like Brand had held her in their practices, pinning her under it as it’s tendrils encompassed her head. She felt it getting closer, touching her thoughts. In a moment it would have her. She could not kick it. Her tail was on the wrong side. But she could push. It was all she could do.

Against the stone of the dais, her tail shoved as hard as she could. It drove her and the Flayer across the floor. Then suddenly there was no floor.

The thing released her in the scant seconds of free-fall as she watched the rapidly closing light above her, the edge of the pit shrinking so fast. She thought about Brand before she hit the bottom, at once sad for her loss, but knowing he would be okay now. She had saved him. And then she died.

For the first time.

She saw two things. She saw a white light. It was warm and comforting and she was drawn to it. But she saw something else. She saw a black jewel, as black as the light was white. Pure black. It held pain, evil, distress of all manners. She yearned to go to the white light. But a voice was there. It was a voice she’d heard all her life. It was not her mother. It was not her teachers or her friends. It was not even Brand. It was her own voice.

“No, Me,” it said. “I cannot be comfortable yet. I have to go back.”

“But why? It is so cold there. I don’t want to go back! Please don’t make me!”

“We have to go back,” the voice said, contradicting her. “We have more to do.”

“I DON’T WANT TO! LET ME BE WITH YOU!”

“How can you be away from me? I _am_ you. But now we must get cold again. We must breathe again and love again. Go on. Go to the dark.”

Kreet sighed, metaphorically. She really, _really_ didn’t want to. But she looked back at the black jewel. She didn’t move, but she returned anyway.

She opened her eyes. She hurt in every muscle. Her eyelids hurt. She was in utter darkness, but she was a kobold. She could see. She lay on the bank of a strong underground river, naked as the day she was born. She looked up, but there was no sign of any pit that dropped her here. She looked around, but there was nothing. Then she heard a sound. A voice. Not in her head, but a real sound. It was coming closer.

A troupe of Dark Elves came around a corner and they spotted her instantly. While she had no experience with Dark Elves, she remembered them from her classes at the Monastery. They could have been taken directly from the illustrations she’d seen. Slavers.

“Well,” she thought with resignation, “a kobold’s life usually ends up short or as a slave. I suppose it’s to be expected.”

“You! Kobold! Do you speak?”

“Kreet can talk some Big People talk,” she said, mimicking how she knew kobolds speak in Common - if they ever learned how at all. It would not do to let these Slavers know of her unusual background. Or of Pelor. Yet. Maybe the life of a slave wouldn’t be so bad anyway. And there was always a chance of escape.

She thought about Brand as they took her back to where other slaves awaited. He would look for her, but he wouldn’t find her. She hoped he wouldn’t look for too long, though she knew better. Maybe someday they would meet again, if she lived that long. But she shouldn’t expect it. That was just as well. They were too different. Besides, she _did_ want to have children of her own, and - love notwithstanding - Brand could never give her that. No, best to start her life anew.

She felt the heavy iron neck ring close around her neck as she was shackled to the other slaves and they began to walk…


	32. Epilogue

Brand did look for Kreet for days. Weeks in fact.

After the Mind Flayer was dead, its minions scattered - some even managed to get out of the labyrinth of caverns alive. Others fell to the kobolds and their traps. Fortunately the kobolds were well-disposed towards Karl and what remained of his party for having killed the Big Fire Person. Brand was able to talk with them and the kobolds helped them bring Karl’s son and the rest out of the tunnels safely, though when they reached the mouth of the caverns Brand did not continue with them.

Instead he stayed with the kobold clan, learning more about them as they helped him to search for his missing friend. They found the body of the Mind Flayer readily enough, but the pit ended in nothing but corpses and stalagmites. There was no river - in fact there was no exit at all. It was, as far as he or his little friends could tell, impossible that her body was not there. Yet it was not.

Even as he gave up hope of finding his friend’s body, he honored her memory by staying with the little kobold clan, which prospered under his guardianship. He taught them many things, not least of which was the art of compromise and diplomacy. But he also taught them fighting skills. The next time a band of adventurers were seen lurking around the kobold’s home, Brand was there to intercede. Neither the adventurers nor the kobolds came to any harm, and rumors began to spread among Adventurers about a growing group of tough but friendly kobolds - something unheard of prior to Brand’s presence - lurking somewhere in the depths of the underground.

Karl returned to his wife, of course, child unharmed and unaware of what had happened. Under his care, Vosa recovered nearly fully, with only some slight scarring as evidence of the attack. He took over the duties of the Cleric Quint, who went into seclusion after the incident. Some say he moved into a run-down shack in some woods not too far from Brand’s new home in the caverns.

And in the Wicked Kobold tavern, the stories of the dancing Kobold that once worked there grew and expanded to heroic proportions. Eventually Red and Cherry left the town and ventured all the way to the caverns where they met and talked with Brand. They returned with a new kobold in tow, she a young and unusually curious specimen who had practically begged to go. So the Wicked Kobold had a new mascot, but they kept Kreet’s image on the sign that swung outside in memory of their missing friend.


End file.
